Why I Will Choose the Self-Service Checkout Every Single Time (And No, I'm Not Sorry)

It's not misanthropy. It's self-preservation. Let me explain.

I will choose the self-service checkout every single time. If there's a queue for the self-service tills and not a single person waiting at the manned checkout, I will still walk toward the machines like a homing pigeon. I will stand behind someone who is scanning their items at the pace of a particularly relaxed sloth. I will wait for the red light to flash and the "assistance needed" message to appear and the overworked staff member to come over and swipe their card. I will do all of this, patiently, without complaint, because the alternative is a human being. And I don't have the energy.

This is not about being antisocial. I like people. Some of them. In small doses. It's about the specific, exhausting, sensory-and-social ordeal that is the manned checkout. Let me walk you through it.

The Performance of Small Talk

At the self-service checkout, the machine does not ask me how my day is going. It does not comment on the weather. It does not look at my items and make a remark about what I'm having for dinner. It just scans. It beeps. It tells me the total. It takes my money. It prints my receipt. It says, "please take your items." I take my items. We part ways. It was a perfect interaction.

At the manned checkout, a human being—who is probably very nice and just doing their job—is required to engage with me. And I am required to engage back. "How are you today?" "Did you find everything you needed?" "That looks nice, what are you making?" "Any plans for the weekend?" And I have to perform. I have to smile. I have to find the right tone of voice. I have to decide, in a split second, whether to give the real answer ("I'm exhausted, I'm operating on four hours of sleep, my nervous system is shot, and I'm just trying to buy milk without having a meltdown") or the polite lie ("Fine, thanks, you?").

I always choose the polite lie. And it costs me. Every time. It's a tiny transaction of energy I don't have to spare.

The Sensory Chaos

The self-service area is not quiet. But it's a predictable kind of noise. The rhythmic beeping of scanners. The mechanical voice that says "unexpected item in bagging area" with the calm detachment of someone who has seen things. The shuffle of feet. It's a controlled environment. I can manage it.

The manned checkout is unpredictable. The cashier might be chatty. They might be silent. They might be having a bad day and radiating tension that I will absorb like a sponge because my nervous system doesn't know how not to. There might be a queue behind me, pressing forward, watching me pack my bags too slowly. The person behind me might be standing too close. The person in front of me might be having a complicated interaction involving coupons and price checks and a manager being called.

At the self-service checkout, I control the pace. I can pack my bags the way I want—tins together, bread on top, nothing crushed. I can take as long as I need. No one is watching. No one is waiting. No one is judging.

The Executive Dysfunction Factor

Packing shopping at a manned checkout requires a specific kind of cognitive processing that I am extremely bad at. The cashier scans things at their pace, not mine. Items come at me in an unpredictable order. I have to make split-second decisions about what goes in which bag. The bread is in the bag before I've even found the bread. The tins are rolling around loose. The frozen stuff is getting warm. I'm sweating. I'm apologising. I'm trying to pay while simultaneously packing and the whole thing feels like a test I haven't studied for.

At the self-service checkout, I scan things one at a time. I pack as I go. I am slow. I am methodical. I am in control. It takes as long as it takes, and no one is waiting for me to hurry up. This might be the closest thing to executive function accommodation that a supermarket offers. I'm taking it.

The Fear of the Unexpected

What if the cashier asks me something I don't have a script for? What if they're training someone new and it takes longer and I don't know what to do with my face? What if the card machine doesn't work and they have to call someone and I have to stand there while a queue forms behind me and everyone looks at me?

These are small things. To a neurotypical brain, they barely register. To my brain—a brain that is constantly scanning for social threats, constantly monitoring my own performance, constantly trying to anticipate every possible interaction before it happens—these are landmines. The self-service checkout is a path without landmines. Of course I'm taking it.

It's Not You, It's Me (Literally)

I want to be clear: I don't think cashiers are bad people. I don't think the manned checkout is a moral failing. I don't think I'm better than anyone for choosing the machines. This is not about superiority. It's about accommodation.

The self-service checkout is an accessibility tool. It allows me—someone with anxiety, probable AuDHD, sensory sensitivities, and a social battery that drains faster than a cheap phone—to complete a necessary task without being completely depleted by it. It leaves me with enough energy to get home. To put the shopping away. To make a cup of tea. To exist for the rest of the day.

That's not misanthropy. That's self-preservation.

A Small Note to the Cashiers

If you're a cashier reading this: I see you. I know your job is hard. I know you're underpaid and underappreciated and probably just as exhausted as I am. I'm not avoiding you because I don't value you. I'm avoiding the interaction because it costs me something I can't always afford. It's not personal. It's neurological.

So No, I'm Not Sorry

I will choose the self-service checkout every single time. I will do it for my nervous system. I will do it for my social battery. I will do it because packing my own bags at my own pace is a small, quiet victory that gets me through the week.

You won't see me at the manned checkout. But I'll be there, at the machines, scanning my milk and my bread and my emergency chocolate, beeping my way toward the exit, preserving what little energy I have left for the things that actually matter.

Like making a cup of tea. And locking my door. And recovering in silence.

Anxiously Ever After is written by me, Jennie, a 50-something-year-old woman with lifelong anxiety, diagnosed GAD, and a strong preference for self-service checkouts. I write from a rented room in a shared house, door locked, recovering from the weekly shop.