If You Have To Say It Out Loud, It’s Probably Not True.

When my girls were in Middle school I carpooled with a Mom who lived around the corner; her kids (twins) were one or two grades above Linds and one year below Lolo. As much as I loved their mom, the twins were a bit obnoxious. They loved to brag about the size of their home, how much it could sell for, their new clothes, new phones etc…I just can’t with braggers, even if they’ve barely hit puberty, but being the mature adult, I bit my tongue a lot.

I recall one day when picking them up from school, the daughter was scrolling her texts said to me: “You probably don’t know this, but I’m really popular.”

The words spilled out of my mouth before I could stop myself:

Well, if you have to say it out Loud, it’s probably not true.

Obviously, I’d had enough with her sassy ass. I could hear Lindsay in the backseat giggling at my remark, and since then, that’s been a One Liner with Linds and I.

Recently, the Coach and I attended an event/dinner/awards at our local university. In attendance, and sitting at our table was a former athlete who is only two years older than our Lolo. Anyhoo, this young lady is beautiful, smart, very sweet, appeared very accomplished and personable.

But as much as I admired her for those things, and she did seem interested in the other people around her, I also knew in the first 21 minutes of introduction that she (and her husband, who is my age) have several Chiropractic practices, a Ferrari, a large house, plenty of travel opportunities that require much luggage and her Chanel purse needs its own chair.

Woah Sister, save some stuff for later!

The Coach and I discussed it on the way home and had a good snicker. Not the candy bar, a giggle, although I could use a snicker bar because I’m not myself when I’m hungry.

Anyhoo. It made me wonder, if I had all those ‘things’ at 32, would I feel the need to boast about them? No. I would not. And today, at the ripe old age of what I am, I’m kind of the opposite. I prefer to play down the ‘stuff’ and focus on what really matters: My Stellar Personality.

Not to brag, but I’m damn popular. In this house. Most of the time. Really, mostly at dinner time, but you know.

Anyone run into a not.so.humble bragger lately? Were you as unimpressed as I?

XOXO

36 thoughts on “If You Have To Say It Out Loud, It’s Probably Not True.”

  1. I always find those kind of people sad… as well as annoying. Their need to impress screams low self esteem and there’s no amount of chair hogging Chanels that will cure that.

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  3. Oh my gosh. I love that you said that to the teen twin. That’s hilarious.

    I run into people like that from time to time and find them unbearable. The one that stands out though is the brother of the triplets I babysat until the mom lost her mind in a meltdown in my kitchen when I closed the door that she’d left open to reprimand a kid in my garage on a FREEZING day. She felt I’d closed the door in her face in front of my whole family, when really my kids were just turing into popsicles while eating breakfast.

    Anyway, the dad drove a Tesla and the 6 year old brother used to point out to the other kids when they got dropped off that their cars weren’t as expensive as his dad’s Tesla. Of course he could only have known that if his folks (probably his dad) tipped him off.

    I was upset when they quit my daycare abruptly, because I was out a big chunk of income. Coach was like GOOD RIDDANCE. Weird, because I’m always right . . . but for this one time. 😉

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    1. A six-year-old braggart! He’s going to have a lot of years of that ahead of him. LOL. Obviously, it was taught by the parents, and that’s horrible. I’m with your Coach: Good Riddance!

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    2. I so agree that the most frequent way we enable bad behavior is by not saying anything: I’m glad you spoke up, Suz. I believe the world would be a better place if there was more of that, and, yes, early on in one’s life…

      And I love quotes, and you just gave me my latest quotable quote “if you have to say it out Loud, it’s probably not true.” May I use it (with an attribution, of course)?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. You may use my quote anytime the feeling arises, which I hope isn’t too often. 😳
        My thought process was (and is) if it’s not apparent to everyone, it’s probably something you made up in your head. We do live in a world where delusion is rampant.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Thank you! And thank you for the wish of not coming across too many deluded people…

          Yes, there are some bubbles that seem to be in bad need of bursting, though, sadly, some of the bubbles seem to be made of concrete? 🙃 🫧 🪡

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  4. HA! This whole post made me giggle. I have encountered some child braggers in my day, but since they are still in elementary school I have bit my tongue. Sometimes extremely hard. My own kid, sometimes, will say things like, “I’m really smart.” and I think… well, sure, but also… let’s work on the humility kid. (We do try to work on the humility. Such a balance between wanting your kid to have healthy self esteem and not be a weird braggy oversharer.)

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    1. I’m glad I made you giggle.
      There is a fine line between healthy confidence and bragging; Carla saying she’s smart shows that she has healthy self-esteem. Now, if she walked around talking about her pretty face, then I’d be worried. She knows better!!

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  5. I like to ‘Save some stuff for later’! I met someone who started talking about his practice assuming I knew he was a doctor of some sort, assuming I knew. Which I did but..,

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    1. We were with a young, newly engaged couple recently, and when I saw the size of her diamond, I giggled and said: You can only go UP from here, so prepare yourself.
      I think we all benefit from humble beginnings…at least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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  7. This is a running joke in our house, too! Whenever I do something routine or boring I sing “I’m so cool doing _____” and my husband jokes that cool people don’t need to tell you they’re cool. I haven’t run into a bragger recently, but I’ll definitely blog about it if it happens.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Well, you are SO COOL! 😉 But I love your husbands’ rebuttal; he is thinking along the same lines as I do, but I stand by the fact that you are, indeed, cool.

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  8. Nothing worse than a humble brag from someone desperate to impress. My husband is on Linked In where this happens often, and he snarls about it every time, feeling the need to tell me about it.

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  9. Well, you are a popular blogger so there’s that! In my opinion, people who brag about what they have or what they do are very insecure and just trying to make themselves feel better!

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  10. It says a great deal about a person if he/she feels the need to boast, and none of it’s good. I have to say that I’m rarely in the company of people like that. (Thank goodness!) Can you imagine having nothing more interesting or pleasant to talk about?

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  11. When I was a lot younger I used to be impressed and intimidated by people who would tell me about how important and rich they are. Then I got to really know a few of them and understood that they were NOT any happier or more content than me. In fact, pretty much all of them were downright miserable and consumed with keeping ahead of the Joneses (who are these Joneses, anyways?), never mind keeping up. Which made them shallow and quickly uninteresting to talk to.

    Deb

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    1. I agree with you. As we get older, we can grasp what is essential in life. Hopefully, everyone will get there….but we know they all won’t. But we did, and that makes us extraordinary.
      Wait, did I just brag about us? 😜😉

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  12. That is a HILARIOUS one-liner and I’m using it!!!! And I had to laugh at the fact that her husband is approaching his ‘Golden Buckeye Card years’ (as we say in Ohio). Maybe in 10 years, you can ask how THAT is working out for her??

    My two kids who were high school athletes HATED braggarts so much while playing sports and it’s funny how they still have zero tolerance for them to this day.

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    1. HAHA!! I told Coach that she must have Daddy Issues. They did seem very happy, but still, he has kids the same age as her or just a few years younger.

      Braggarts are indeed a turnoff!!

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  13. I feel like the whole internet is just full of braggers, and I hate it. I think your line about if you have to say it out loud it probably isn’t true is much nicer than I would have said. I probably would have said something about peaking in school is pretty tragic and most of the popular kids I knew ended up being drug addicts or strippers…. just sayin. Do you know about the whole Christmas Haul trend on tik tok, I find it terrible because young kids don’t need help feeling inadequate.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I agree with you about the High Schoolers who peak at that age. I have first-hand experience seeing that from my vantage point now.

      OMG, I had to go and see what you were talking about on Tik Tok. WOW!! BRAGAPALOOZA!
      Although, I did see one kid comment that they couldn’t share what they got on Christmas because their entire family came down with covid. 😩

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  14. Okay, I love this and maybe will steal it. If you have to say it out loud, it’s probably not true – LOVE THIS. Bragging is something I dislike very much as well. Kari recently said on her blog that she hates when people do a good deed and then post it on social media, and I have to agree. I kind of think it takes away from it when you post a photo of the receipt showing you bought coffee for some stranger. I mean. Really.

    I know a woman who is my age, who in her 30s was in a relationship with a very wealthy man. I am talking VERY WEALTHY. He was also probably 30 years older than her. Guess what happens when you’re in your 40s and your guy is pushing 75? Suddenly you become his caretaker. Not so sexy.

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    1. Speaking of buying coffee for strangers, I read recently (somewhere) a post from a barista that stated why not tip the workers instead of purchasing a coffee for someone who was already going to buy themselves a coffee? She/he said that when you buy a coffee for someone else without them knowing, it’s confusing for the workers. I’m not sure if it’s 100% accurate, but it made sense.

      I do not want to change my husband’s diapers. I will if we get to that point, but I might also be in diapers then, because we’re the same age so it doesn’t matter. Right?

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  15. In my experience, anything you have to say out loud isn’t true. Actions speak louder than words! And humble bragging is the absolute worst kind. If you’re going to brag, just go right ahead and don’t pretend to be humble about it. Pull the Band-Aid off! I already kinda hate you!

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  16. I’m with you on trying not to snark at middle-schoolers, but your well-timed zinger was beautiful. I agree that it’s more sad than anything when a person feels like they have to talk about all their material possessions and wealth in the first twenty minutes they meet you. I worked at a bookstore in a bigger city here once and one of the other employees said kind of snootily “I’m a member of the Boulevard Club”, which was some kind of – I don’t know, what do you call those clubs rich people go to? Anyway, I had no idea what it was, which clearly pissed her off, which was funny.

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