A few weeks ago I was talking to my new therapist about how crippling my social anxiety has become. I told him that I feel okay in small groups, but at parties or crowded places I completely lose my ability to conduct a normal conversation. I am always dying to connect with people, aching for a chance to dig around inside their souls, but really I’m much better at doing that from afar, like from across the street as I make note of their gait or from the other side of my Macbook screen.
Basically, I don’t know how to communicate with strangers or how to draw on visual cues for conversation topics. I’m aware this makes me seem autistic, but it’s actually kind of the opposite: I’m too in touch with my surroundings, too observant of my peers. As another therapist once said, I am “hyper-vigilant” and “susceptible to the moods of those around me.” I can’t talk to strangers because I am too busy picking up on the other cues they are subconsciously displaying, like the timbre of their voice or the way their shoulders hang. If they are sad, I am sad; that’s just the way it’s always been.
Out of them all (and there are MANY), sometimes I think my biggest flaw is my inability to make small talk. I suppose it’s less of an inability as a subconscious refusal to master it; I’ve always been terrified of turning into the working stiff discussing the weather in the elevator. If I’m talking, I want it to be about something important. I want my words to mean something. I don’t want to speak just to speak. And that’s what small talk feels like to me.
My therapist is attempting to knock me off my high horse and give me little sound bites to memorize so that when my brain freezes, I have an arsenal of pointless phrases to brandish if awkward silence strikes. In some ways it’s pathetic that social interaction has to be this calculated, but I have to remember that going along with this does not make me a robot: in fact it makes me more outwardly personal, as opposed to being trapped inside my body, frozen by unexpressed empathy.
The odd part about my social anxiety is that it has never felt genuine. It has always seemed like an affliction happening to someone else. I was not born awkward: I was actually very outgoing as a kid. I used to tease my Dad that he had “SAD” disorder because he never wanted to socialize with my friends’ parents. It wasn’t until I was a teenager and I had my first run-in with how totally, horrifically cruel kids can be that I started dreading group interaction, started dreading parties, started feeling so self-conscious that I developed tics I can’t shake to this day: the hair twirling, for example. Why can’t I be perfect?, I wondered. The answer is because I’m human, but as teenagers we forget this. Instead, my inability to achieve perfection bred gut-busting insecurity.
At the crux of all this is what happened during my 13th year. I had just moved to an upper class suburb from a decidedly lower class city. It was my first time living in a place with school buses. It was my first time having a real BACKYARD. I showed up to the first day of school in pink Old Navy “pedal pushers” (the other girls called them capris, DUH) with my bangs glued to my face with mousse like I’d learn to do from my Latina friends. Everyone else wore American Eagle or Abercombie. I could not afford those stores. My parents still ordered my clothes—via phone!—from Lands End at the beginning of every school year.
It was in 7th grade that my social anxiety really blossomed, because it was in 7th grade that the girls around me started to feel less like allies and more like enemies. We all used AOL Instant Messenger, which was a main thoroughfare for teenaged girl bitchiness. It took five minutes to create a fake username in order to harass others. Back then we changed our screen names as frequently as we changed outfits, so it never seemed suspicious when “Phillies890432” sent a chat request. Anonymous IMs almost always came from mean girls pretending to be boys you had a crush on. Chat logs were printed out and passed around the cafeteria. We didn’t have cell phones yet so we used landlines like landmines: we aimed straight for the heart and rarely missed. I still vividly remember lying on my back with my feet propped on the headboard, having a screaming phone fight with my favorite frenemy of that time. I think it was that year, 2001, when I discovered I could really hurt people, and that they could hurt me. It’s been 10 years but still I cringe. It’s amazing how young we learn to be cruel.
I never really thought to look back that far, to follow the thread of what happened when we were 13 to its source. Now that I have, it does make sense that those experiences helped form the first kernel of my anxiety. So I’m forcing myself to learn small talk, to take one step at a time. How was your weekend?
Hi. You need to read called “Tell Me a Story,” by Roger Schank. It’s a somewhat academic book, but there is a very good part about conversations. Might be good for life and writing.
*read a book
Sweet, I’ll pick it up! Thanks, Alvin
get some exercise. eat food, mostly plants, not too much. get outside in the sunlight, don’t get burned. Your brain is the most sensitive part of your body. Your brain seems particularly sensitive. So treat your whole body well.
You learned to be socially anxious. That’s cool. You learned to dislike small talk. Quite understandable!
You learned these things for reasons. Reasons that were important enough to change you behavior by a lot. It’s awesome you are revealing those reasons. But after awhile you will have to discover and make up some new reasons and get some new impetus to motivate your learning and growth.
what would that look like? clearly small talk seems inauthentic to you… so what would motivate you to talk to people? what would motivate you to become more gregarious and less sensitive? Could you be true to yourself and be gregarious?
What do you believe about yourself?
Shank’s book seems awesome. Narratives can be powerful. And narratives can be insidious; because, they compromise authenticity.
You might like Impro by Kieth Johnstone, but read it only if you’ll do some of his exercises (which are very fun). small talk is improvisation.
Self Theories by Carol Dweck might be right up your alley. She reviews studies she did with Junior High girls (among others) and how their self theories affected their social and academic performance (and likely development) which really speaks to this blog entry!
Thanks for writing. I totally get how you feel. I used to feel that way a lot, still do sometimes. My way through has been that I decided to be more curious, get uncomfortable, try new things… that’s where the fun happens isn’t it?
All great suggestions — thanks, Calvin!
I’ve actually found you to be better at it than you think you are