I agree fully with Hul-Gil. The main thing hindering the socially awkward is caring. Stop caring about your image and your social awkwardness goes away. When you truly reach a point of total apathy regarding how others see you—then nothing you do will be awkward. The difference between a person who’s random without caring how they’re perceived and the person who tries to be random but ends up being awkward is this: The latter really does care, but acts like he / she doesn’t. It shows.
Here’s my, perhaps slightly sadistic, bit of info: After that, if other people think what you’re doing is awkward (you won’t, because you won’t care), it becomes a means for your own entertainment.
I’ve come to the point where I take a strange, humorous pleasure in making others around me feel awkward. People who I don’t know, of course, feel strange. People who I do know think it’s hilarious.
Although one thing I still kind of struggle with is feelings about the opposite sex. I’m hoping to read more comments regarding it.
“Why is it that when a person of the opposite gender so much as pays attention to you, you think you have a crush on them?”
That’s just something I can’t seem to get over. I think to myself, “I know I don’t have a crush on her,” etc., etc., etc.—but it’s like a perpetual loneliness whispers unwanted daydreams of being with someone, regardless of how little a connection there is.
When you truly reach a point of total apathy regarding how others see you—then nothing you do will be awkward.
Really, I probably could have posted just this sentence. Exactly what I meant.
At first, this attitude was difficult to achieve, and sort of forced—thus I’d go to the grocery store with messy hair, and have to force myself to remember “you’re a robot!” Now, however, it doesn’t even enter my head to worry.
Although one thing I still kind of struggle with is feelings about the opposite sex. I’m hoping to read more comments regarding it.
This is probably largely what spurred the “robot approach.” In my all my favorite fantasy or sci-fi stories, there’s always that episode or chapter where A Female seduces all the normal characters (unintentionally or otherwise)… but The Robot remains immune. It’s almost like a superpower (in this context), to be unmoved by beauty.
In real life, of course, I have only rarely been approached by beautiful females intent upon seducing me in order to take over my spaceship. But I did often feel like they had undue power over me; so I’d think to myself “ha, ha; she thinks I have a crush on her because she’s pretty and I’m not, but really all I care about is science!” (Though I did eventually meet a girl who had a thing for mad scientists. Took more than two decades, though.)
Also, I… uh… once pretended to be gay. Turns out females can be great friends if there’s no sexual tension. This served as a valuable lesson to me; since most of the tension was evidently just in my head (girls don’t actually seem to immediately assume I’m trying to get in their pants like I feared), if you just act unconcerned you’ll probably find they have no problem hanging out with you.
(I just realized a lot of this is not directly relevant to your problem, but it’s at least somewhat related, so I’ve posted it anyway.)
I’ve come to the point where I take a strange, humorous pleasure in making others around me feel awkward. People who I don’t know, of course, feel strange. People who I do know think it’s hilarious.
Not quite; it’s more blatant (and intentional) than that, I suppose. I’ll give a few examples:
*The other day, when hanging out with some people, I poured myself a glass of water, walked over to one of the females, dipped her hair in it, drank the water and shuddered—as if the remnant taste of her hair was ecstatic. Of course, she was creeped out. Of course, everyone else thought it was hilarious. I acted as if it’s normal.
*At a small get together, I put on someone’s football helmet and narrated a basketball game (I know absolutely nothing about basketball). Afterwards, I unnecessarily asked someone to help me take it off—being as genuine about it as someone who really needed help. He helped me take it off, me making it difficult in a subtle manner. I shook his hand afterwards, and held onto it. I said to him, quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear, “Wow, you have really soft hands. That’s really nice,” and I rubbed his hand a bit. The few people there who knew me thought it was hilarious. He was, of course, kind of weirded out, and the people around him were a mix between the two.
*Telling the girl at the drive-through she has an astonishingly pleasant neck.
*Whispering, “I want to be with you forever,” while hugging someone.
Stuff like this. It sounds weird (tee hee), but totally getting over caring about what people think helps, and I think doing really, really strange stuff helps getting over it.
You are making the people around you feel uncomfortable. Not caring if the people around you are uncomfortable isn’t just cool, admirable detachment, it’s borderline sociopathic.
Someone else feeling uncomfortable for a small moment is, I think, a pretty reasonable side-effect when you’re trying to not always feel uncomfortable. I’m not hurting anyone, physically or emotionally, or any other such thing, but I’d rather be able to make other people feel uncomfortable for a few minutes instead of me feeling uncomfortable every time I interact with someone else.
How do you know? I have a friend who feels roughly as protective of her hair as an average person feels of their genitals. If you helped yourself to the end of her braid and dipped it in your water without a by-your-leave she’d feel violated and uneasy for days. I’m a little less neurotic about mine, and would shrug off such a thing faster than that, but if I thought I had any chance of getting you kicked out of the venue after you pulled that kind of stunt, I’d do it, on grounds of do not want (and “what if next time it’s not water, it’s scissors? What if this escalates every time I let it slide?”). Sure, she’s uncommon, so am I, but we also have a reasonable expectation that people will not seize our hair when we go out in public. I’m sure there are victims of various forms of assault with PTSD who could be triggered by your remark about their neck. Etcetera, etcetera.
If you need to make others feel uncomfortable so you don’t have to (and there’s an if there), seek volunteers. Do not hunt down victims.
Having someone volunteer would defeat the purpose, yeah?
The female whose hair I dipped in my glass was one of my friends—yes, she was creeped out by it for the moment, and yes, the other people we were with thought it was funny, but that was the extent of it. We’ve spent time many times afterwards, and laughed about it. I think either you might be making some faulty assumptions, or I didn’t include enough information.
Though, your crafting a completely arbitrary situation that makes hair-dipping a horrible thing, calling people who feel uncomfortable “victims”, and suggesting I may be a borderline sociopath leads me to believe that you might just be a bit uptight.
I’ll leave this part of the discussion, I don’t think continuing it will be beneficial to anything.
I think you’ve discovered the same tricks of status-gaining and coolness that the high-school bully did when you were all 16. Some people can stand it and find it funny, while others are likely going to go home and think about killing themselves just for an out.
I feel like you guys have this unusually serious idea of what I’m doing. No one’s being “bullied” or harmed, and the majority of people I act towards are people I see and interact with frequently.
I can only assume that, since so many people are taking it that way, that there’s been some horrible fault in my description.
I thought about this a bit more after posting. I definitely do something that could plausibly be described by your previous post with certain people that I’m very comfortable/familiar with. Context is hard on the internet and I can imagine contexts where your described behaviours would be sensible. But they weren’t the first ones that came to mind.
Being unafraid in social situations is useful, but it seems to be most effective if you combine it with another skill: the ability to accurately read people. Here’s a beautiful Reddit comment explaining that skill. Disclosure: I only recently realized that I’m bad at reading people, and I’m going to follow the advice in that comment.
*The other day, when hanging out with some people, I poured myself a glass of water, walked over to one of the females, dipped her hair in it, drank the water and shuddered—as if the remnant taste of her hair was ecstatic. Of course, she was creeped out. Of course, everyone else thought it was hilarious. I acted as if it’s normal.
I can’t decide what would be the most ‘hilarious’ reaction. Seeing her kick you as hard as she could in the balls in self defense or her having you charged with sexual assault.
Is doing that kind of things absolutely neccessary for maintaining your indifference? It sounds like people caught up in your jokes might not enjoy them. And didn’t you ever get in trouble for acting like that, for example by getting challenged, physically assaulted, thrown out, fired, etc.?
Nope. I’m trying to find a way to consolidate both of our mindsets on the matter. Anyone who would “challenge”, physically assault, etc. me because I made them (or someone) feel a bit uncomfortable for a couple of moments, I think, might be blowing things way out of proportion. That seems unreasonable to me, the inability to deal with a little discomfort.
The only thing I can think of is that there’s the idea that the only way I interact with people is by doing these strange things? If that is the case—it’s not true, and I can see where others wouldn’t want someone who always makes them feel uncomfortable around.
Anyone who would “challenge”, physically assault, etc. me because I made them (or someone) feel a bit uncomfortable for a couple of moments, I think, might be blowing things way out of proportion. That seems unreasonable to me, the inability to deal with a little discomfort.
The impression I am getting is one of belligerent naivety. You are describing the active violation of another’s person in a manner with overt and intentional sexual implications. That is a big deal. A strong reaction against that is fairly reasonable and should certainly be expected either by the victim or a witness.
I’m trying to put a finger on the origin of differences in opinion between me and everyone who agrees with you—but I’m having a hard time. I live in Eastern US, so I can’t imagine there’s a huge culture gap.
I can’t think of any situation where someone could make me feel uncomfortable, and I, in turn, would hit them. To me, that seems absolutely absurd. I can not see the sense in the situation. If I were to touch someone’s hair, and, in return he/she kicked me in the testicles—how can a person seriously see that as self defense and not a blatant escalation of an otherwise harmless situation?
Though, wedrifid, it looks like many people agree with you, and it’d be silly to assume everyone but me is violent or unable to handle themselves, so I’m apparently missing something. I’ve been “messing with people” for a while, and never have I come across anything more severe than someone simply being “weirded out”.
There’s a difference between not enjoying something and being unable to handle it. There are many things in life I “don’t enjoy”, but their importance, relevance, or the time I spend thinking about them is infinitesimal.
Is there a generational difference between me and the people commenting? I’m 22. Perhaps socially acceptable actions and reactions were a lot . . . stricter in the past, and that reflects in people’s opinions?
I find that kind of stuff to be pretty funny. Alicorn has a good point in that in some cases, it can go too far; doing the hair thing to a stranger would be an example of that, perhaps. But doing it to friends or acquaintances, when you’re reasonably certain they won’t suffer from it? Seems fine.
(Also—the hair thing is gross! I wouldn’t wash my hands in that water! But I’m just uncomfortable with other peoples’ bodies in general.)
It’s a weird thing; in my various mental, social, and emotional endeavors, I’ve developed a strange standard for what I think is gross—typically, if something doesn’t have a high-chance of detrimentally affecting my health, I’m ok with it. (This has lead me to do things that other people wouldn’t think of doing, ever, haha.)
I agree fully with Hul-Gil. The main thing hindering the socially awkward is caring. Stop caring about your image and your social awkwardness goes away. When you truly reach a point of total apathy regarding how others see you—then nothing you do will be awkward. The difference between a person who’s random without caring how they’re perceived and the person who tries to be random but ends up being awkward is this: The latter really does care, but acts like he / she doesn’t. It shows.
Here’s my, perhaps slightly sadistic, bit of info: After that, if other people think what you’re doing is awkward (you won’t, because you won’t care), it becomes a means for your own entertainment.
I’ve come to the point where I take a strange, humorous pleasure in making others around me feel awkward. People who I don’t know, of course, feel strange. People who I do know think it’s hilarious.
Although one thing I still kind of struggle with is feelings about the opposite sex. I’m hoping to read more comments regarding it.
That’s just something I can’t seem to get over. I think to myself, “I know I don’t have a crush on her,” etc., etc., etc.—but it’s like a perpetual loneliness whispers unwanted daydreams of being with someone, regardless of how little a connection there is.
Really, I probably could have posted just this sentence. Exactly what I meant.
At first, this attitude was difficult to achieve, and sort of forced—thus I’d go to the grocery store with messy hair, and have to force myself to remember “you’re a robot!” Now, however, it doesn’t even enter my head to worry.
This is probably largely what spurred the “robot approach.” In my all my favorite fantasy or sci-fi stories, there’s always that episode or chapter where A Female seduces all the normal characters (unintentionally or otherwise)… but The Robot remains immune. It’s almost like a superpower (in this context), to be unmoved by beauty.
In real life, of course, I have only rarely been approached by beautiful females intent upon seducing me in order to take over my spaceship. But I did often feel like they had undue power over me; so I’d think to myself “ha, ha; she thinks I have a crush on her because she’s pretty and I’m not, but really all I care about is science!” (Though I did eventually meet a girl who had a thing for mad scientists. Took more than two decades, though.)
Also, I… uh… once pretended to be gay. Turns out females can be great friends if there’s no sexual tension. This served as a valuable lesson to me; since most of the tension was evidently just in my head (girls don’t actually seem to immediately assume I’m trying to get in their pants like I feared), if you just act unconcerned you’ll probably find they have no problem hanging out with you.
(I just realized a lot of this is not directly relevant to your problem, but it’s at least somewhat related, so I’ve posted it anyway.)
Surely it can’t have been that bad for everyone, otherwise there’d be an outrage!
...
People never seem to talk about Boarding Schools as opposed to Normal Schools.… Nor do they compare it much wioth Homeschooling.
You mean, like, No Sense Of Personal Space and The Tease sort of stuff?
Not quite; it’s more blatant (and intentional) than that, I suppose. I’ll give a few examples:
*The other day, when hanging out with some people, I poured myself a glass of water, walked over to one of the females, dipped her hair in it, drank the water and shuddered—as if the remnant taste of her hair was ecstatic. Of course, she was creeped out. Of course, everyone else thought it was hilarious. I acted as if it’s normal.
*At a small get together, I put on someone’s football helmet and narrated a basketball game (I know absolutely nothing about basketball). Afterwards, I unnecessarily asked someone to help me take it off—being as genuine about it as someone who really needed help. He helped me take it off, me making it difficult in a subtle manner. I shook his hand afterwards, and held onto it. I said to him, quietly, but loud enough for everyone to hear, “Wow, you have really soft hands. That’s really nice,” and I rubbed his hand a bit. The few people there who knew me thought it was hilarious. He was, of course, kind of weirded out, and the people around him were a mix between the two.
*Telling the girl at the drive-through she has an astonishingly pleasant neck.
*Whispering, “I want to be with you forever,” while hugging someone.
Stuff like this. It sounds weird (tee hee), but totally getting over caring about what people think helps, and I think doing really, really strange stuff helps getting over it.
You are making the people around you feel uncomfortable. Not caring if the people around you are uncomfortable isn’t just cool, admirable detachment, it’s borderline sociopathic.
Someone else feeling uncomfortable for a small moment is, I think, a pretty reasonable side-effect when you’re trying to not always feel uncomfortable. I’m not hurting anyone, physically or emotionally, or any other such thing, but I’d rather be able to make other people feel uncomfortable for a few minutes instead of me feeling uncomfortable every time I interact with someone else.
Maybe there’s just a better way?
How do you know? I have a friend who feels roughly as protective of her hair as an average person feels of their genitals. If you helped yourself to the end of her braid and dipped it in your water without a by-your-leave she’d feel violated and uneasy for days. I’m a little less neurotic about mine, and would shrug off such a thing faster than that, but if I thought I had any chance of getting you kicked out of the venue after you pulled that kind of stunt, I’d do it, on grounds of do not want (and “what if next time it’s not water, it’s scissors? What if this escalates every time I let it slide?”). Sure, she’s uncommon, so am I, but we also have a reasonable expectation that people will not seize our hair when we go out in public. I’m sure there are victims of various forms of assault with PTSD who could be triggered by your remark about their neck. Etcetera, etcetera.
If you need to make others feel uncomfortable so you don’t have to (and there’s an if there), seek volunteers. Do not hunt down victims.
Having someone volunteer would defeat the purpose, yeah?
The female whose hair I dipped in my glass was one of my friends—yes, she was creeped out by it for the moment, and yes, the other people we were with thought it was funny, but that was the extent of it. We’ve spent time many times afterwards, and laughed about it. I think either you might be making some faulty assumptions, or I didn’t include enough information.
Though, your crafting a completely arbitrary situation that makes hair-dipping a horrible thing, calling people who feel uncomfortable “victims”, and suggesting I may be a borderline sociopath leads me to believe that you might just be a bit uptight.
I’ll leave this part of the discussion, I don’t think continuing it will be beneficial to anything.
I think you’ve discovered the same tricks of status-gaining and coolness that the high-school bully did when you were all 16. Some people can stand it and find it funny, while others are likely going to go home and think about killing themselves just for an out.
And others take the bully out first.
Not that we are encouraging high school shootings.
Of course not. Killing everyone is way disproportionate.
I feel like you guys have this unusually serious idea of what I’m doing. No one’s being “bullied” or harmed, and the majority of people I act towards are people I see and interact with frequently.
I can only assume that, since so many people are taking it that way, that there’s been some horrible fault in my description.
I thought about this a bit more after posting. I definitely do something that could plausibly be described by your previous post with certain people that I’m very comfortable/familiar with. Context is hard on the internet and I can imagine contexts where your described behaviours would be sensible. But they weren’t the first ones that came to mind.
Being unafraid in social situations is useful, but it seems to be most effective if you combine it with another skill: the ability to accurately read people. Here’s a beautiful Reddit comment explaining that skill. Disclosure: I only recently realized that I’m bad at reading people, and I’m going to follow the advice in that comment.
That comment deserves its own post!
I can’t decide what would be the most ‘hilarious’ reaction. Seeing her kick you as hard as she could in the balls in self defense or her having you charged with sexual assault.
Is doing that kind of things absolutely neccessary for maintaining your indifference? It sounds like people caught up in your jokes might not enjoy them. And didn’t you ever get in trouble for acting like that, for example by getting challenged, physically assaulted, thrown out, fired, etc.?
Nope. I’m trying to find a way to consolidate both of our mindsets on the matter. Anyone who would “challenge”, physically assault, etc. me because I made them (or someone) feel a bit uncomfortable for a couple of moments, I think, might be blowing things way out of proportion. That seems unreasonable to me, the inability to deal with a little discomfort.
The only thing I can think of is that there’s the idea that the only way I interact with people is by doing these strange things? If that is the case—it’s not true, and I can see where others wouldn’t want someone who always makes them feel uncomfortable around.
Why? Why should people tolerate you inflicting discomfort on them, regardless of how often or how nastily you do it?
So, you think it’s unreasonable to attempt to avoid social discomfort by doing something that someone else might not like?
The impression I am getting is one of belligerent naivety. You are describing the active violation of another’s person in a manner with overt and intentional sexual implications. That is a big deal. A strong reaction against that is fairly reasonable and should certainly be expected either by the victim or a witness.
I’m trying to put a finger on the origin of differences in opinion between me and everyone who agrees with you—but I’m having a hard time. I live in Eastern US, so I can’t imagine there’s a huge culture gap.
I can’t think of any situation where someone could make me feel uncomfortable, and I, in turn, would hit them. To me, that seems absolutely absurd. I can not see the sense in the situation. If I were to touch someone’s hair, and, in return he/she kicked me in the testicles—how can a person seriously see that as self defense and not a blatant escalation of an otherwise harmless situation?
Though, wedrifid, it looks like many people agree with you, and it’d be silly to assume everyone but me is violent or unable to handle themselves, so I’m apparently missing something. I’ve been “messing with people” for a while, and never have I come across anything more severe than someone simply being “weirded out”.
There’s a difference between not enjoying something and being unable to handle it. There are many things in life I “don’t enjoy”, but their importance, relevance, or the time I spend thinking about them is infinitesimal.
Is there a generational difference between me and the people commenting? I’m 22. Perhaps socially acceptable actions and reactions were a lot . . . stricter in the past, and that reflects in people’s opinions?
An ex-girlfriend of mine had a joke where she would return from the bathroom and put a wet finger on my neck, saying “I peed on my hand”.
I guess the LW question would be: what is the probability that it was a joke?
I find that kind of stuff to be pretty funny. Alicorn has a good point in that in some cases, it can go too far; doing the hair thing to a stranger would be an example of that, perhaps. But doing it to friends or acquaintances, when you’re reasonably certain they won’t suffer from it? Seems fine.
(Also—the hair thing is gross! I wouldn’t wash my hands in that water! But I’m just uncomfortable with other peoples’ bodies in general.)
It’s a weird thing; in my various mental, social, and emotional endeavors, I’ve developed a strange standard for what I think is gross—typically, if something doesn’t have a high-chance of detrimentally affecting my health, I’m ok with it. (This has lead me to do things that other people wouldn’t think of doing, ever, haha.)
You mean ME GUSTA sorts of things?
I prefer to think of myself as a Cloudcuckoolander. (Also, thanks—now I’m stuck on TVTropes again. I’m not even sure how I escaped last time.)
(Also, weren’t you a poster on Totslet? :O)
Neivar, I am a veteran troper.