Being Socially Awkward -

Being socially awkward is basically a personality core upgrade when you’ve got AvPD. It’s not just “Oops, I said something weird” – it’s “everyone else is a fully functioning human”. Meanwhile, I’m rehearsing “Good morning” in my head 12 times and still panic squeak, “Mornight!” at whoever cared enough to say hi to me. And it’s how I feel about myself when I’ve failed an audition for “normal likeable person” that makes me avoidant. It’s far beyond being introverted. It’s a deep feeling of embarrassment and shame and leaves me wondering what the point is. That’s why I prefer to just live my life reclusively.

Being socially awkward can be funny, if slightly embarrassing, but when you combine that with AVPD? That’s not just tripping over your words – it’s internally combusting because someone said “hi” and you panicked and said “You too” even though they didn’t say anything you could respond to with “You too.”

AVPD isn’t just “I’m shy.” It’s “I have mentally rehearsed my grocery store trip 17 times and I’m still not going because what if the cashier thinks I don’t deserve cereal?”

And for those of us with AvPD, it’s not the usual ruminating that people do when they think they could have done better. For us, or for me personally, it’s a case of emergency OCD behaviours which can see me touching, tapping, and talking to myself; these are the things I do to get my mind off my latest failed communications.

I’m very uninteresting to talk to because I never want to offend anyone or have anyone judge me. Therefore, when I do talk (usually one sentence bursts is all I can manage) it’s to ask a question or to state the obvious. Because I’m too worried that a conversation will start and I’m not quick enough or spontaneous enough to add anything, my conversational skills are at zero.

The Effortless Banter Of The Social Butterflies

Have you ever noticed the way other people walk away from a conversation on a joke? They are both (or all) laughing and it seems like such a natural way to part ways and go about their day. Me? I never know how to end a conversation (which is another reason why I rarely start them) and as soon as I’m out of sight, I’m mumbling to myself or counting touches on the door handle trying to get my latest interaction out of my head. I wasn’t good enough, normal enough and I looked like an idiot.

I wish I didn’t care, but my whole self is based on how I come across to other people. If they don’t adore me, then I am worthless.

Being socially awkward is soul destroying for me. I’m socially awkward to the point that I make other people feel awkward when they are witnessing my awkwardness.

I’ve not entertained anyone at home in around fifteen years, with my last attempt being an awkward mess.

Here’s another thing I’ve noticed about other people when they socialize at home; they have other things going on so it makes the visit more interesting. They might have people popping round or they might have to nip out and so ask their guest if they want to go with them. It’s spontaneous and natural because it’s not a big deal to them.

Whereas with me, my focus is totally on my visitor. I sit there being socially awkward, fretting over how to make things go smoothly, and really trying to just have a normal conversation which then leads to the awkwardness I’m trying to avoid. I’m so focused on trying to be relaxed that I end up being the complete opposite.

I marvel at the way people say hello to each other on the street and then carry on the conversation in such a natural way. They will ask if the other person got their car fixed in the end, or ask how their mother is.

This is the whole point of listening to a conversation in the first place. But I’m rarely listening and so when I bump into a neighbour, I’ll say hi and they will say hi back and ask if I’m ok and I’ll say yes thanks and that’s it. I dare not ask how they are because that could lead to a conversation where again, I’m struggling to focus on what they’re saying.

The Internal Monologue (a.k.a. Mean Girl, But She’s You)

“They think you’re weird.”

“Why did you say that?”

“That joke was stupid.”

“You sounded like a malfunctioning toaster.”

“Just go home and live under a blanket forever.”

If someone catches me and I’m forced to talk to them, they will chat away while I nod and try to look as if I’m interested and normal. They might then say something like, “Nice to talk to you (they don’t realise they have been talking AT me), and I’ll say something like, “No problem!” and I scurry off home to continue my touches on door frames, counting them and trying to get the touch balance good enough until I’m satisfied. (I don’t think that I have OCD but I do have OCD behaviours.)

How I wish I could say something witty and leave on a laugh.

Or just to know how to leave a conversation without the horrible awkward silence at the end where more should have been said but wasn’t.

How To Create Awkward Silences Without Even Trying

Creating awkward silences and being socially awkward is one thing I’m brilliant at. Because I try to act like a normal regular everyday person, I’ll really really rehearse what I’m going to say and it comes out contrived and false. The result is my audience staring at me, either expectantly waiting for me to carry on, or gazing at me with pity. Then someone kind might quickly chime in to try and take the onus off of me and my rapidly flushing face. Or they finish the chat awkwardly and we avoid each other forever.

My Real Life Examples Of Being Socially Awkward

I remember one time a neighbour came home from work and feeling brave, I said what a lovely day I’d had in the warm weather. He looked at me in silence and actually said to me: “Go on”. He was waiting for me to say something else. To elaborate – which is what normal people do. But because I’m socially awkward, one sentence is all I can manage without starting to stutter over my words.

It doesn’t help that sometimes (quite often actually) I will act really confident (which I am sure makes me pretty unlikeable) when saying my one sentence and the other person is left hanging because I have suddenly stopped speaking :(.

Cue awkward silence.

If a conversation is flowing and I piped up bravely with a few words, I don’t seem to say the right thing or say it in the right way because the conversation will stop dead and everyone is shuffling their feet and avoiding my gaze.

It’s hard to come back from that, so I’ll usually stay zipped until I can escape.

The Dreaded Stuttering Word Salad

I remember about twenty years ago, a time when I did still have some friends. I was reading a paragraph out of a newspaper to them, and after two sentences, I had to stop and pass the article over for someone else to read as my voice had started to shake. This was with good friends and I think this was the moment they must have realised that in the few years they had known me, I’d never actually spoken more than a sentence or two in one go and that our whole friendship was based on me asking them questions, stating the obvious and making some short observations or trying to crack quick jokes.

This is what happens when I try to say more than a few words at a time. I just get really nervous and forget what I’m saying. I’m super tuned in to how I’m coming across and super aware that my social awkwardness and nervousness is revealing itself.

If this rings a bell with you, is it any wonder we are socially awkward around people? There is no fun to be had when you know you are expected to say something and knowing that as soon as you do, people will see how insecure and nervous you are and your true bumbling self will be exposed.

I have tried various Meet Up groups but I’ve never gone back to any of them. In fact I lasted about five minutes at the last one I went to before pretending to go to the loo, never to be seen again.

And being socially awkward, people don’t want to be my friend anyway because it’s a full time job trying to have a conversation with me.

A Result Of DNA, Memories, And Questionable Decisions

I think one of the reasons I’m socially awkward is because most of my adult life I have relied on popular boyfriends to prop me up and carry me. I targeted my victims for their capability to have a presence and to be able to talk to a room (the tennis coach, the radio DJ, the campaign leader, the sky dive instructor, and regular guys with regular jobs who were just confident in themselves), but I learnt too late that when you learn to get by by being a strong person’s girlfriend, you totally lose yourself – especially when that relationship ends and you have lost that weird validation that you relied on.

I believe it is partially our genes that make us this way but also our childhoods and how we have lived our lives since adulthood that lead us to AvPD. The absolute worst thing I could have done was not to have made something of myself and to have relied on other people for my sense of self worth. Add that to my genetic framework and my fragmented childhood and I was only ever going in one direction, whereas if I had built my own life, that would have maybe levelled my insecurities out and I might not have AvPD now.

Thriving On Adrenaline And Chaos

Actually, there is one area where I’m surprisingly not socially awkward and that’s if there is a drama unfolding. Maybe this is because small talk is off the table and also perhaps because my ears have pricked up because I find drama exciting.

I mention this because I often wonder why I’m not interested in conversation and would love to know if other people are thinking the same thing.

If so, maybe we struggle with conversations not only because we have social anxiety but also because we find them utterly boring and pointless.

If I could go to Alton Towers with a group of people where there was a rule that nobody was allowed to talk and the day involved everyone running around eating candy floss and going on the rides – I think I’d have a great day out.

For those of us who are socially awkward, even talking about the rides with other people fills us with dread because the conversation still has to flow (which we struggle with) and for me, to be brutally frank, I don’t see the point in talking about what we are doing, I just want to do it. I think I’m an adrenaline junkie and anything that doesn’t fill me with excitement is quite frankly as dull as dishwater.

Being socially awkward on this level means that physical interaction is nigh on impossible for me and for most of us with AvPD.

And that is down to our extreme fear of rejection and possibly our apathy at most things spoken.

A Lifestyle Blog for the Socially Avoidant