When You Tell Someone You Study Physics

The universal physics student experience: mention your major and brace for impact as someone unleashes the dreaded "I HATED physics in school!" followed by their trauma story about failing to calculate the velocity of a frictionless pulley. Meanwhile, you're standing there like a tornado survivor, knowing what's coming but powerless to stop it. The conversation will inevitably spiral into either "explain why the sky is blue" or "so you're basically Einstein?" There's no escape—just the silent scream of someone who just wanted to enjoy their drink without becoming an impromptu therapist for high school science trauma.