I think it is valid to be concerned about how other people perceive you, so I will try some synthesis here:
It is bad to assume that every “not absolutely safe” behavior (1) will be perceived as bad; and that if that happens, (2) that is a horrible thing.
1) If you avoid obviously bad behavior, some things you do may or may not be perceived as bad. Sometimes the probability is reasonably low. And the “absolutely safe” behavior actually also sometimes rubs people the wrong way. And some people will give you a negative reaction no matter what you do, e.g. because you remind them of someone they hate, or because they already came in a bad mood.
Stop trying to achieve the impossible. If you think that even a small rate of rejection is unacceptable, that’s an interesting topic you can discuss with your therapist. (A possible answer could be that you need to meet more people, so that each individual rejection is a smaller fraction of your social environment.)
2) If you avoid obviously bad behavior, the fact that someone dislikes you has little impact both on you and on the other person. The next day they will probably forget that you exist. You need to move on, too.
That said, it is useful to sometimes get feedback on your behavior. You just don’t need to do that every day, before speaking every sentence. That is bad timing, and it will interfere with your social interactions. Instead, you can reflect afterward about whether there was something you could have done better (sometimes there wasn’t), or once in a while you can ask your trusted friends to give you feedback.
Yeah I was having a really rough time trying to find a good synthesis. I think I arrived at my current setup because my default behaviors are pretty good if and only if I’m not freaking out about how I’m coming across; I think this is broadly typical but definitely not universal.
Agreed that there is an important difference between trying to force a specific micro-scale interaction to go well (no! bad!) vs trying to set up rules in such a way that interactions go well for you in general.
I think it is valid to be concerned about how other people perceive you, so I will try some synthesis here:
It is bad to assume that every “not absolutely safe” behavior (1) will be perceived as bad; and that if that happens, (2) that is a horrible thing.
1) If you avoid obviously bad behavior, some things you do may or may not be perceived as bad. Sometimes the probability is reasonably low. And the “absolutely safe” behavior actually also sometimes rubs people the wrong way. And some people will give you a negative reaction no matter what you do, e.g. because you remind them of someone they hate, or because they already came in a bad mood.
Stop trying to achieve the impossible. If you think that even a small rate of rejection is unacceptable, that’s an interesting topic you can discuss with your therapist. (A possible answer could be that you need to meet more people, so that each individual rejection is a smaller fraction of your social environment.)
2) If you avoid obviously bad behavior, the fact that someone dislikes you has little impact both on you and on the other person. The next day they will probably forget that you exist. You need to move on, too.
That said, it is useful to sometimes get feedback on your behavior. You just don’t need to do that every day, before speaking every sentence. That is bad timing, and it will interfere with your social interactions. Instead, you can reflect afterward about whether there was something you could have done better (sometimes there wasn’t), or once in a while you can ask your trusted friends to give you feedback.
Yeah I was having a really rough time trying to find a good synthesis. I think I arrived at my current setup because my default behaviors are pretty good if and only if I’m not freaking out about how I’m coming across; I think this is broadly typical but definitely not universal.
Agreed that there is an important difference between trying to force a specific micro-scale interaction to go well (no! bad!) vs trying to set up rules in such a way that interactions go well for you in general.