Lightly agree with a little caveat. I don’t want to make too strong a claim here to the counter, but there’s a healthy version of this that’s surprisingly close to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It’s possible to be poorly calibrated in the other direction than I’m talking about in this essay, where you don’t say perfectly fine things because you incorrectly assume people will be mad.
--”If I say this, everyone will hate me. If I say that, everyone will hate me. If I don’t say anything, everyone will think I’m weird and hate me.”
“Can you tell me what that would look like?”
“They’ll ignore me, or give short answers, or move away.”
“Are there any other possible explanations for that behavior?”
“I mean, I guess maybe they saw a friend.”
“At the last gathering you were at, when you talked, did they do those behaviors?”
“No. I guess some people smiled. But maybe they were just faking?”
“At the next gathering, if you say those things, do you predict people will smile or move away from you? Would you like to put odds on those options?”
Obligatory reminder to reverse all advice you hear. This might be the type of idea that would destroy a person with social anxiety
Lightly agree with a little caveat. I don’t want to make too strong a claim here to the counter, but there’s a healthy version of this that’s surprisingly close to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It’s possible to be poorly calibrated in the other direction than I’m talking about in this essay, where you don’t say perfectly fine things because you incorrectly assume people will be mad.
--”If I say this, everyone will hate me. If I say that, everyone will hate me. If I don’t say anything, everyone will think I’m weird and hate me.”
“Can you tell me what that would look like?”
“They’ll ignore me, or give short answers, or move away.”
“Are there any other possible explanations for that behavior?”
“I mean, I guess maybe they saw a friend.”
“At the last gathering you were at, when you talked, did they do those behaviors?”
“No. I guess some people smiled. But maybe they were just faking?”
“At the next gathering, if you say those things, do you predict people will smile or move away from you? Would you like to put odds on those options?”