I hadn’t heard the word countersignaling before, but it matches something I had observed many years ago.
My closest groups of friends always make so much fun of each other. We make negative comments about the worst traits about each other, the things that we are most self-conscious about… yet every time my friends make fun of me for something I worry about, I actually feel better and more comfortable with myself.
When I thought about why, I realized it’s because of the hidden message behind the ridicule of my longtime friends; they are telling me, “we are keenly aware of the worst qualities about you, and we love you and want to spend time with you anyway.”
There is comfort in knowing you don’t have to hide your flaws to be accepted and loved.
I wish I could find the original source on this, but I remember reading a tweet or blog that I thought had a really good metaphor for this kind of "male friend ribbing."
The metaphor went something like this: men making fun of each other are actuall y showing that they understand their friends deeply, because they know how to stab without hitting an organ.
That is - in order to make fun of someone without actually hurting them, you have to know which kinds of topics not to touch for any given friend. You skip the "your mom" joke for the friend with parent issues, and so on.
On the other hand, though, I have very often see my fellow enginerd types badly misread this dynamic. I've seen guys come onto an established team where some mutual teasing has evolved, then fall flat when they try to emulate that it - because they haven't yet earned the depth of relationship that makes it OK.
It kind of reminds me of another "nerd social fallacy" I've often observed, which I guess I'd name: "I can't be a bully." I think a lot of times people who've grown up dealing with bullying don't realize when they've become one. Sometimes the mutual teasing degrades into one guy just being a dick to the other.
Only some kind of men behave like that. I had many friends growing up and we never did that sort of thing, and it always put me off to see people who did.
It's two different kinds of logic. The stereotypically male way makes sense to me: you take the weapons that could be used against someone and make them harmless. If you're fat, your friends call you fat, and you're like, hey, they know I'm fat, it's established that I'm fat, and they're my friends anyway! Being fat is fine! It takes all the fear out of it.
In my perception, the stereotypically female way is, if you're fat, nobody calls you fat. They're careful using the word around you. They might even tell you you're not fat. To me, that makes it seem like the friendship depends on the obvious lie that you're not fat, which makes it seem inevitable that it's going to end. One day they're going to make some acknowledgment of the evident truth that you're fat, and that's your signal that they're done with you and the friendship is over. To me, it feels like the truth is being kept in reserve for the day when they're going to shank you with it.
That's my (male) perspective. I'd rather have friends who acknowledge the truth about me and make me feel okay about it than friends who act like the truth about me isn't compatible with friendship and inclusion.
On an intellectual level, I get the (stereotypically) female perspective, too -- I get that it doesn't seem friendly to constantly remind someone of their shortcomings, and that a friend group should give someone an escape from oppressive social perceptions. But that doesn't resonate with me as much emotionally.
Same goes for how men are comforting each other by acknowledging flaws/mistakes/situation to try to help move on.
Which is very different on how women comfort each other.
It's a stereotype that women are directly mean to other women more than men are mean to other men. No idea if there is any data to back that up, only that it's a commonly repeated meme.
There's also culture at play. I don't know if men affectionately dissing their friends is universal but there's plenty of related things like:
In Japanese culture you don't brag about co-workers or family to outsiders. Outsiders you treat with respect. Insiders you don't. The fact that you don't get the more polite treatment is proof that you're an insider. It's a common scene in stories where someone asks to stop being treated like an outsider by specifically asking for the less polite language. You can also watch the ribbing man to man, man to woman, woman to man, woman to woman. I don't know if there is data on which is more common.
I know both kinds of people, men, women and kids. Its a thing that is nurtured across generations and different for each family and not that much gender-specific.
There's a fine line between teasing, which can build up a person, and degradation designed to destroy self esteem. It's also easy to dismiss that degradation as "I'm just teasing. You're too sensitive. "
I don’t find it very gendered, my sister and I used to do this often, like young wolf pups, we’d jostle and play for the upper hand.
I have women friends who will play like this with me. It can reveal insights that neither of us were clear on without the other bringing it to light.
Of course it can be one sided too, and it turns into bullying. I think context matters and even if you’re being bullied, it’s still revealing if you are able to see beyond the emotion. You’re not your looks, your body, your mind, your bank account, your friend group, etc… Your worth is beyond these things. I hope you find that someday!
It may be common in many places, but it is also a great filtering mechanism for envy. People who belittle others for fun feel a need to project some kind of social status above others. It’s toxic behavior because it can grow.
I seek out the social groups where people try to help eachother and where most of the conversation is towards pushing a common goal or helping each other’s pursuits. That way someone saying something negative is a signal, and the negative can be addressed. You can only move fast and in the right direction with clear signaling. If the signal is diluted by people with low self esteem who would rather belittle those who do than do the doing, then you need to clear the signal.
I think that's because when women do it, they are usually being intentionally cruel. Any woman will tell you how cruel teenage girls are to each other.
I would point out that male on male bullying absolutely exists. Sometimes were sever one. It also frequently involves mocking the other guy and no it is not friendly.
Sometimes those women are actually making very accurate observation about relationships of involved guys.
It is not exactly rare when "it was just a joke" is entirely dishonest and when went on was actually attempt to put down another guy.
That's astute. I was always uncomfortable with this kind of joking. I felt threatened. The real reason was that I didn't have a good comeback.
Let's say my nose was large, and a friend jokes about it. I need to say something back. And I could not think of anything. A low stakes situation becomes higher stakes than it needs to be.
So on their side they see me struggle and probably feel bad, so they don't do it again. But then we are just friends not best friends.
I don’t know if I have a clear answer to how I learned and practiced this. Probably a lot of simple exposure and observation. The important thing is the friendship comes first; I never make an insult joke to someone I don’t know well. I build a friendship first, then test out the waters with small jokes.
I also always start and focus on myself; I make jokes at my own expense often. A big part of my personality is a strange juxtaposition of bravado and self deprecation. I will joke about how amazing I am and how much of a failure I am at the same time.
It seems to work? I think people like me, generally? I don’t know man, I just wing it! I have no idea what I am doing, but I am also pretty great at not knowing what I am doing.
I've identified two approaches to this situation. One is to take the insult graciously, as though it's feedback:
"Careful: you could put someone's eye out with that!"
"Oh! Thanks for the reminder." (adjust the position of your head, as appropriate for your extremely large and dangerous nose)
---
The other is to take whatever they said, and exaggerate it. This produces really good comebacks. (It's important to insist upon this point, regardless of any evidence you might receive to the contrary.)
"Careful: you could put someone's eye out with that!"
"Oh, could I? Well, your entire face is bad."
If they respond with another insult, repeat the same strategy. They'll notice what you're doing after the second or third attempt, and then it will turn from "this person's bad at comebacks" into "this person's (pretending to be) bad at comebacks and it's funny".
"My face is bad? Is that the best you could come up with?"
"Your face is so bad that it makes everyone else's faces bad, too."
"But… that means your face is also bad."
"And whose fault is that? It's your fault. Specifically, the fault of your face. Which is bad."
"Still means you've got a big nose."
"Well you've got a small nose."
"No I don't. We've got the same sized noses."
"Thus invalidating your previous aspersion that my nose is unusually large. Who's bad at comebacks now?"
"Still you."
---
There's a third approach, if the insult is disguised as faux-concern: pretend you're taking it seriously, while exaggerating the characteristic they're concerned about.
"Hey, you having trouble seeing past that, mate?"
"Oh, no, it's alright: most of my vision is unobstructed." / "I've got some tape in my bag if I need it." / "It's no worse than binoculars."
when i dont have a comeback i simply say, "oh no ive been owned" or something similar. the toxic male environment social equivalent of brushing yourself off and standing back up. lets them get whatever they needed from the exchange but also signals theyre not going to get a big reaction from you if they happen to be 100% bully
Can I float an adjacent idea? It collapses the anxiety by simply forcing the thing your anxious about to be over. I've definitely had the experience you're describing where someone likes me despite something I'm insecure about. I've also had the experience where someone dislikes me precisely because of something I'm insecure about and tells me as much to my face. Both are better than not knowing.
The book Impro treats extensively of what it calls "status games", in the context of building believable, natural scenes of dialog for the stage (or other dramatic purposes) and as a framework for making improvisation interesting.
The author muses that the situation of feeling safe playing status games with another person—that is, treating them only as games, not as serious and with real status in play—is perhaps the definition of what friendship is.
This could include trading barbs, taking turns playing the bully and the victim, trading playing "high" and "low" roles, jokey one-upsmanship, that kind of thing. Stuff you don't do with non-friends because there's too much risk of being taken seriously, and too much risk of losing actual status or of hurting someone else's status for-real when you didn't intend to.
OMG. The section (and one central page) in that book about status is one of the most insightful and meaningful things I have ever read in my entire life!
Once you recognize status transactions ... they are absolutely everywhere, in every single interaction.
I think this varies a lot depending on the person and the relationship. When I was younger, I couldn't put up with ribbing at all. I always took it as bullying. I still think very negatively of some of the people I was "friends" with at the time due to that.
On the other hand, I have ~3 friends I made as an adult that I have been talking to very frequently (with some, daily), for a decade or so, and there, any level of ribbing is fine.
I don't think it's about us knowing each other's worst qualities and being fine with it, as a lot of our banter is on things we can't change about ourselves. I think it's just a matter of trust.
It's a game that allies play in order to prepare for enemies.
When played with allies, it connects you to each other and lets you put your guard down (which is perverse to those that don't get it).
The same game played with an enemy teaches you to deflect rather than internalize bad-faith insults and teaches you to use wit and words to stand up for yourself, keeping your dignity without violence.
...
Also it's a demonstration of equality.
e.g. you can't play the game with your boss or your son, but you can play it with your brother and your peers.
My friend group from my school did the same thing, but I've always hated this pattern. Because of exactly this behavior, after finishing school I've decided to intentionally drop some contacts.
Maybe I've interpreted it as "I'm better than you, because you're doing X. I'm mentioning this over and over again, because it makes me feel better."
I once worked at a place where we all called each other “NERD.” One time a person outside the IT circle turned to us in the cafeteria and shouted, “What's up, NERDS?” There was complete silence in the room. I guess only a nerd can call another nerd a nerd.
True. Back in the day, the mates and I would greet each other by saying, "Hey, fuck you." Then, "No, fuck you.". You can kinda guess it eventually ping pongs louder and funnier. We kind of had to stop when other innocent people would pop in and ask if everything is "ok".
That may be an interpretation. Another is that many have difficulty regulating their feelings, and “venting” the discomfort in this semi-controlled manner is a socially acceptable release because it invites others to do the same to you, and you all minimize the risk of catastrophic attacks under tension.
Yes! I’ve noticed that when people struggle to manage their emotions, it often comes out in a kind of jabbing or teasing way. It’s usually not really about the other person, it’s more a reflection of their own insecurities. For example, the guy jabbing his friend for being short is probably not that tall himself and may feel insecure about it deep down. There could be some unprocessed feelings around it. The genuinely tall person usually couldn’t care less. The thought of making that jab doesn’t really even surface lol
Yeah, I don't know about that. I had many people in my life (including close friends and relatives) who continued to be abusive "it's just fun teasing" even after I asked them to stop.
They are no longer in my life. I don't miss them even a little bit!
This seems fairly culture-dependent, from my experience.
For instance, I've noticed a distinct difference in how sarcasm is received in the Northeast US vs the West Coast. What you described feels more Northeast-y to me (I'm sure it varies by other segments and sub-sub-cultures, too).
There's the saying: "If an Irish person calls you 'asshole,' it means they think you're a friend. If they call you 'friend' it means they think you're an asshole."
Ha that's funny. I'm from the Midwest and found my dry/sarcastic humor tended to confuse people on the West Coast. A lot of people tended to take me completely seriously when I was obviously joking.
> My closest groups of friends always make so much fun of each other. We make negative comments about the worst traits about each other
That sounds terrible. A candid conversation about our flaws is one thing. IME 'friends' who most often mock each other are just trying to elevate their status in the group, by pushing others down.
The problem with using clinical phrases to describe normal behavior is demonstrated in this post. "Social anxiety" has a specific clinical meaning that is not covered by this post. The post is actually discussing a very natural and rational nervousness that normal people have in social situations. The post is providing a way of thinking about that nervousness that can help reduce it, for the nervous person's benefit, and it's great if that works, but it's not addressing social anxiety.
Social anxiety is a condition that cannot be thought away, you cannot rationalize social anxiety nor can it be represented as a cost/benefit analysis of risk of being disliked vs. reward of being liked. You can feel socially anxious without having social anxiety. You can be depressed without having depression. You will be depressed after your beloved pet dies. You will be socially anxious walking into a room full of people you haven't met before.
I agree with you as a general rule. But this is actually pretty close to how Social Anxiety is defined. It's about the fear of being negatively evaluated or embarrassed.
I think what this blog post is getting at is describing for people the difference between fear of negative evaluation and positive desire to be liked.
One thing the post misses is that sometimes these are learned behaviors that come from a lifetime of experience being disliked for no obvious reason. For example, sometimes outgoing autistic children develop social anxiety after their peers reject them repeatedly.
> It's about the fear of being negatively evaluated or embarrassed.
It's not just a fear, it's "persistent and intense fear". and like most psychological disorders, a key part of the definition includes "a negative impact on the person's functioning in daily life".
Like OP said, fear of being embarrassed is entirely normal and healthy response. It's not social anxiety nor a psychiatric disoder.
It's not different than OCD, phobias, etc. They can all be entirely normal responses. What makes them a disorder is the level of intensity and the impact on the person's life.
> sometimes outgoing autistic children develop social anxiety after their peers reject them repeatedly.
As a middle-aged woman who can't figure out what the benefits would be that would outweigh the costs of pursuing formal diagnosis at this stage, I related a lot harder to that line than I wanted to.
I've always been extraverted. I always do fine in new interactions, because I'm chronically interested in anything I don't already know well, especially if someone else is passionate about it. Most of my first meetings with people quickly become conversations where I'm listening attentively and asking interested questions about some niche thing they love and their friends and family members are sick of hearing about. I get stellar reviews on initial conversations at unstructured social events.
And yet I spend the vast majority of my time at home by myself because after about the fourth interaction, something about me registers as "off" to other people and they start to distance themselves from me. I have never understood why.
I'm not socially anxious, at least not in the typical "can't get out and meet new people" way. I just can't take the never-ending hope-rejection loop anymore.
It's about a specific type of debilitating fear. The DSM has a rule for criteria that, to be considered as having a condition, it must seriously affect your ability to live a normal life.
Most social anxiety is not debilitating, and would not meet the diagnosis. This is why therapists receive so much training - you must encounter enough people with a truly debilitating fear that you know when to diagnose it.
It's not just embarrassed, it's about avoiding being used as a punching bag by the local bullies the school will do nothing about.
And, yes, when the typical outcome is exclusion without any reason, or without a reason that you have any control over (such as that bully, people don't want to be around the targets because it might spill onto them) what else would you expect?
> You will be depressed after your beloved pet dies.
You'll experience *grief* after a pet dies. We've pathologizing grief to a point that it makes it harder for those experiencing both grief and depression, two separate (but sometimes linked) human conditions.
I completely agree and I don’t like when non-medical professionals take these terms too seriously.
Psychiatrists are way better equipped to diagnose these things not because they can read diagnostic manuals (anyone can) but because their training exposes them to real cases.
There’s a world of difference between feeling awkward and quiet at a social event vs having heart palpitations and panic attacks that prevent you from even going outside.
You can feel socially anxious without having social anxiety.
That is not true in plain English, just because a particular profession decides to use words one way, does not mean the definitions change for the rest of us.
> just because a particular profession decides to use words one way, does not mean the definitions change for the rest of us
This is a particular pain in physics, which has taken very commonly used words and given them a very narrowly defined meaning, within a strict framework - like the words Energy or Work
Exactly right. And you might waste years of your life trying to "fix" social anxiety by attempting to change your mindset or trying to adopt new social practices. (Speaking from experience.)
Except it’s not. It can be thought away, under enough pressure people can do extraordinary things. There is just no such pressure in society now. I’ve suffered immensely in my life, and if you describe your condition as “anxiety” you simply aren’t suffering enough for treatment to have any real impact.
If you think you’re suffering rises to the medical treatable level please develop a more serious condition before getting on a waitlist. All doctors are taken up on your non-physical problems and you don’t immediately need care like I do.
Exactly this. The article conflates normal social nervousness with an actual disorder, then provides a reframe that may help with nervousness (?) but completely misunderstands the clinical condition.
I didn't get the sense that this article was trying to help people rationalize away social anxiety. Rather, it seemed much more that it was trying to get the socially anxious to accurately assess the nature (and effects) of their reactionary behavior.
IMO it's a useful first step, as a major facet of treating anxiety disorders with CBT involves challenging negative thoughts and beliefs and replacing them with positive alternatives.
Properly understanding that your anxious lizard brain is (successfully) trying to protect you from the threat of being disliked helps reframe that behavior in a positive light.
> Social anxiety is a condition that cannot be thought away
I hope not, I don't want to be hooked on some prescription meds eg. what about exposure therapy
I do wonder if being nervous to talk to a hot girl is the same as social anxiety I mean I'm not the jock/main attention guy either but I can talk to strangers (guys or not attractive women)
I have social anxiety and it is completely unrelated to likeableness.
I do not think people would not like me, I do not try to avoid people disliking me, that's not the point at all. Quite the opposite, I'm sure I'm an interesting person and I'm confident people would like me if I could take the step.
Problem is, there is something that physically prevents me from saying "Hi!" to a stranger. I literally cannot get myself to take a step towards them and I can't explain why that is, because I do not understand it myself.
Also quite interestingly (to me), this completely goes away under certain circumstances: (1) If I take around 2-3 units of alcohol and it is not a totally alien environment (it would not help if I was in a bar alone with complete strangers). (2) If more than about 70% of people in the room are people I know well. Then I do not feel anxious about approaching the remaining 30%.
I have the same exact experience as you. It's like some weird physical barrier, but I can't really articulate the feeling or explain it. The exposure therapy method here doesn't work because "just do it a bunch of times and you'll get more comfortable" isn't even possible for me, I can't "just do it."
For me though, it takes more than a few beers to be comfortable approaching someone. I'd have to be completely sloshed and even then it's a struggle.
The only time I didn't experience the seemingly physical barrier was in college when a friend convinced me to try MDMA and we went out. I became almost the exact opposite of who I am with the social anxiety. I was the most extraverted, outgoing person in our group quite literally chatting up anyone and everyone that I crossed paths with without any care or inhibition around it.
No other pharmaceutical has been able to cure it for me like that, and it's a bit depressing because I liked that version of myself and I'd like to be able to be that person again without an incredibly dangerous illegal substance.
What you say about "extroverted" is interesting, because I do not see myself as an introvert. Once I am familiar with the people around, I am social bee, very chatty, energised by speaking with others etc. I crave social relationships but I can't find or start them.
My wife is exact opposite. She is an introvert who does not have a problem with approaching people. Relationships drain her energy, she can't chat to even a close friend for more than a couple of hours, but approaching a complete stranger when necessary or she wants to? That's not a problem for her at all, she just does not usually want it, and she loves her alone times.
If you’re open about it, maybe you can take a look into Phenibut — it’s somewhere between alcohol and lightweight MDMA in terms of disinhibition effects. It can help tremendously in the context of aiding progressive exposure. Do you own research, though: it can get into slippery slope fairly quickly.
Make your own decisions of course, but make sure you are fully educated about the risks of MDMA. It is not generally considered to be a dangerous substance. It is illegal though, and moderation is always prudent.
I find it helpful to think of that physical barrier as your own emotions barring you from entering a state where the uncertainty as to whether you'll be safe grows too high to trust yourself to operate in real time.
The problem isn't really being liked or not being liked, the problem is the cognitive overload of trying to predict what will happen and respond to it in realtime, which is sure to set in when one's mental model of the potential interaction is very uncertain. Of course, if your brain quits in a conversation, the other person is not going to be very impressed with you, so this kind of failure carries social risk itself.
The way to fix this is to have as many interactions which are bearable as possible so as to build out the mind's mental model of itself and others in social situations. Gradually the danger just fades away. There's no substitute for firsthand experience; no amount of premeditating, ruminating, or brooding will fix this.
> The problem isn't really being liked or not being liked, the problem is the cognitive overload of trying to predict what will happen and respond to it in realtime, which is sure to set in when one's mental model of the potential interaction is very uncertain.
I think is a big piece. I have social anxiety and I have a tendency not to answer with what I'm thinking but what I think they want to hear because it's more predictable. This gets amplified tenfold in interviews. In an interview, I know that they're looking for a specific answer when they ask a question, but also that the answer differs from interviewer to interviewer. It's like there's this sub-process that is constantly running trying to figure out what to say, but in some situations it ends up locking up the system because it's using too many resources due to the constraints.
Mine is similar to this. In addition the anxiety comes from me thinking that most interactions are banal and more about “trading good vibes and energy” with the other person rather than a genuine deep conversation, and I fear that my facial expressions will reflect what I’m really feeling inside - “ugh can we transition off talking about my weekend or the weather?”. And also because I’m not that witty without alcohol, but it’s almost like most of western small talk is based off of exchanging humor and wit, then laughing very loudly at the punchline. So my anxiety is more to do with not performing well enough to have this stereotypical exchange done smoothly.
This is relatable, mine is somewhat similar. It feels like a very specific version of performance anxiety that unfortunately affects the most banal social interactions. It is obviously multiplied tenfold when I'm in a situation where there are actual stakes (an interview, a first date, etc), but it still applies if I am just talking to a friend of a friend at a party that I don't know very well. The stakes feel very high to me because it's our first time talking.
It's less that I need them to like me or fear being disliked and more that I am just way too conscious of the stakes and the social interaction that's happening, which causes my brain to sort of freeze up. It feels like when I used to play tennis in high school. I'd do great at practice, then freeze up and barely remember how to hit the ball in games because the stakes on each point felt so high.
If I'm around some good friends it completely goes away. If I have hung around the person enough (even without directly talking to them), it goes away. I've also had random days where I don't feel the performance anxiety and performed really well in those situations (and coincidentally some of those days I'd meet a new group of friends or a girlfriend). It's extremely frustrating. Xanax makes the performance anxiety go away completely but slows me down cognitively so I become much less witty and interesting to talk to.
Like most anxiety disorders, there is a reason for your response. Your brain is basically trained to jump from stimulus -> response without cognitively thinking through stimulus -> interpretation -> response.
This is why cognitive behavior therapy can help many people. With a trained professional, you uncover the reasons why you developed the response. Once you know the thinking pattern that drives the response, you can work on changing those thinking patterns.
You have the fear of being judged; the antidote is realizing that most people barely notice you, it just feels like they do because you’re self-conscious around new people.
100% agree. I used to think there was some cognitive loop I could will my way out of. Then I did Keto and all the sudden it was gone.
Keto does a lot to the neurotransmitters in the brain and it clearly balances out things for me and I feel no social anxiety at all.
I’m sure cognitive tricks work for some people. They mostly had the opposite effect on me in the long term. I would encourage people to not buy into it too much
I assume it can be different for everyone. This post resonates with me, but my social anxiety mixes being sensitive to negative feedback and low self-esteem.
So, you want to avoid both being disliked, but also being liked - because this puts you in novel situations you fear lead to an even bigger failure down the road.
Perhaps it is normal, it has been a great challenge my whole life.
Every new school, new job, new environment has been a struggle until I made friends in natural ways (either I had to wait someone approached me, or it has been through activities like shared home work etc.)
But moving to a new country has been a disaster in terms of relationships. I'm already very anxious, but I now need to approach people in a foreign language and there's no school-like environment where relationships form naturally. Clubs and events do not help as they are at most an hour a week so nothing like the school.
I am sure there are many people like me, but I doubt it is the majority. I am just back from my kids birthday and as far as I could see, among 20, there were only one or two other adults who did not speak to anyone, majority somehow has less challenge.
Actually I have attributed it to the pervasiveness of advertising. I fucking hate all ads, and salesmen. And in an attempt to never be anywhere near this thing i hate so much, i do not interrupt strangers ever for any reason
Neither "wanting to be liked" or "wanting to avoid being disliked" rings true to me, at least as applied to my own social anxiety. I want to avoid being thought of at all. The idea of being liked is just as anxiety-producing as being disliked. Possibly more so. Every relationship with another person, positive or negative, is another cognitive burden to maintain. I would vastly prefer most of my interactions to just remain at the default/stranger level where I can re-use the same anticipatory model for most people I deal with.
Tangentially related, I have for some time had a desire to write short stories, but the anxiety around revealing anything that might expose my inner self is probably the biggest reason why I don't.
I was reading a collection of short stories yesterday and came upon Michael Swanwick's "Slow Life". It struck me that it shares more than a few similarities to his "The Very Pulse of the Machine": Woman astronaut on a moon in the outer solar system is placed in lethal danger, encounters alien intelligence that communicates by reading/influencing minds, she isn't sure whether the communication is genuine or hallucinated, eventually the alien intelligence provides a long-shot resolution to save her.
Maybe Swanwick just had another story to tell with some of the same beats. It happens. Or maybe it's like bare feet in a Tarantino movie. The point is, the idea of someone examining my own stories and thinking such thoughts about me is extremely distressing. It's not being disliked that I try to avoid. I'm trying to avoid the baseline stress of social interaction.
I recognize the irony of opening up about this in writing. If you have something to say _about me_, please don't.
The weird thing about "The idea of being liked is just as anxiety-producing as being disliked" is that it is an incorrect prediction of reality: actually being liked would. Thinking about it is really a different thing: it overestimates the stakes involved, it mistakenly invents "ideas of people" to do the liking which do not behave like actual people, and is unable to build any self-esteem by imagining people liking you because these imagined people are under your our control; being liked by your own imagined people doesn't "count" the way being liked by real people would...
The human mind is not really designed to handle under-socialization well, and seems to fill in the empty space with imaginary figures which fail to meet its social needs. Taken outside its natural tribal operating regime, it bugs out in all kinds of strange ways.
> the idea of someone examining my own stories and thinking such thoughts about me is extremely distressing
This is a very familiar feeling to me, and in my experience it actually is a fear of being disliked, or more specifically about not being able to control others' reactions to me. But the fear is so great and unapproachable that the mind cordons it "out of sight" of conscious feeling.
It becomes better to not be thought of than to expose myself to the possibility of others seeing me poorly, especially if I'm not able to defend myself and make the case for my being seen with grace. I suspect that it is over-exposure to human meanness and judgement and under-exposure to kindness and grace which brings about this expectation of others' dispositions towards oneself; this perhaps is the reason for the Christian injunction that humans not judge one another--it guards against this particular failure mode of the social mind.
This rings true to me as someone who's overcome most of his social anxiety over the last few years. The last graph is particularly correct. It's about being authentic and being okay with people not liking you. This is especially useful in dating because then you stop being needy (which is unattractive) when you can let go of the outcome and just show someone who you are and if they reject you then you simply realize that they aren't the person you were looking for because you were looking for someone who likes you for who you are.
Is the person who wrote the post qualified to say this though? Like are these statements the result of scientific research or just his opinion like my opinion?
It's a opinion piece. But so are must attempted explanations of emotions. How would you even study this?
It seems some in the comments resonate and some disagree. So its somewhat useful.
One thing i feel missing is the anxiety part of social anxiety. The way the brain colors vague or unclear external (social) signals in default negative ways, in a feedback loop.
Not avoiding being disliked or seeking being liked, but simply being unable to quantity it correctly.
Fair enough but I still don't understand this person's relationship to the subject and why they are so vague about what they do and what their qualifications are on all of their social media.
I think the premise, backed up by a couple of random tweets, is questionable, but glossing over that, the conclusion is more or less "just be yourself and you'll have more success". Maybe. But I feel like it's pinning social anxiety purely on neurotic safety-seeking behavior, which is superficial. Surely generalized social anxiety is an unhealthy over-correction, but some personality types have inherently more success socially than others, or in blunt terms, some people are more likeable than others. If you're socially compatible with 90% of the population, it's not hard to ignore the 10% you don't meld with, but swap the numbers and the negative feedback will be overwhelming and makes the majority of social interactions anxiety-inducing. I guess that's why the anonymous Internet is full of disagreeable people.
I find "just be yourself" insulting. It implies that the problem is attempting to fake it coming off wrong--it's all in your head. It ignores the reality that some people fit in better than others.
As someone with apparent social anxiety, I don't really care about being disliked either. Being left alone is the overriding priority by far, it is not an aversion to being disliked, although being disliked is not the best since it's still attention.
If someone came to me and tried to mentor me about unlearning my discomfort with being disliked, I would feel like I'm being manipulated and I would make sure to avoid that person.
Yeah same here. I like people, I like me - what I don’t like is the expectation that I essentially perform improv for others when I don’t want to. The problem is being observed, and expected to perform. It feels bad. Being left alone, with no risk of social interaction, feels really really good. It’s a literal relief from the constant energy expenditure that is acting out socializing.
I’d prefer to avoid being disliked - or at any rate, disliked without good reason - but as you say, that’s mostly because then I’d be wasting even more of my time managing interactions with (or more likely avoiding interactions with) those who dislike me. My god what a waste of energy, how I abhor it.
I’ve never been good at banter so this speaks to me.
But it’s interesting to think that when people like you, they tend to want more from you and that leads to social obligations. And you can either go along with these social obligations or decline and come off as rude.
So in a sense, social connections give people some amount of control over your life and that can feel restricting and draining sometimes.
Even something as simple as a text message can be thought of as a task that someone gave you without your consent. And if you don’t respond within a certain time window then you’re rude and risk damaging the relationship. Or if you respond poorly that can damage it as well.
Sometimes I wonder if this is social anxiety or just being extra aware of the realities of life.
This is part of it, but everyone to some degree has discomfort with being disliked and will do things to avoid it. At least in my experience, social anxiety is much more about the cognitive distortions that convince you others dislike you, when they may in fact be neutral or even have a positive view of you.
Just as one example, when I'm interacting with someone who I haven't reached a certain level of comfortability with, I'm highly aware of and sensitive to their reactions to me in terms of what they're saying, their tone, their micro facial expressions, etc., and I perceive any small negative reaction as a sign that they don't like me. This usually isn't true! But it ironically has the effect of inducing self-sabotaging avoidant behaviors in me, such as over-censoring of what I say and just general awkwardness around them, which makes it much more likely they will end up disliking me.
Readit News
My closest groups of friends always make so much fun of each other. We make negative comments about the worst traits about each other, the things that we are most self-conscious about… yet every time my friends make fun of me for something I worry about, I actually feel better and more comfortable with myself.
When I thought about why, I realized it’s because of the hidden message behind the ridicule of my longtime friends; they are telling me, “we are keenly aware of the worst qualities about you, and we love you and want to spend time with you anyway.”
There is comfort in knowing you don’t have to hide your flaws to be accepted and loved.
Women observing this sometimes conclude that men are horribly cruel to each other.
The metaphor went something like this: men making fun of each other are actuall y showing that they understand their friends deeply, because they know how to stab without hitting an organ.
That is - in order to make fun of someone without actually hurting them, you have to know which kinds of topics not to touch for any given friend. You skip the "your mom" joke for the friend with parent issues, and so on.
On the other hand, though, I have very often see my fellow enginerd types badly misread this dynamic. I've seen guys come onto an established team where some mutual teasing has evolved, then fall flat when they try to emulate that it - because they haven't yet earned the depth of relationship that makes it OK.
It kind of reminds me of another "nerd social fallacy" I've often observed, which I guess I'd name: "I can't be a bully." I think a lot of times people who've grown up dealing with bullying don't realize when they've become one. Sometimes the mutual teasing degrades into one guy just being a dick to the other.
In my perception, the stereotypically female way is, if you're fat, nobody calls you fat. They're careful using the word around you. They might even tell you you're not fat. To me, that makes it seem like the friendship depends on the obvious lie that you're not fat, which makes it seem inevitable that it's going to end. One day they're going to make some acknowledgment of the evident truth that you're fat, and that's your signal that they're done with you and the friendship is over. To me, it feels like the truth is being kept in reserve for the day when they're going to shank you with it.
That's my (male) perspective. I'd rather have friends who acknowledge the truth about me and make me feel okay about it than friends who act like the truth about me isn't compatible with friendship and inclusion.
On an intellectual level, I get the (stereotypically) female perspective, too -- I get that it doesn't seem friendly to constantly remind someone of their shortcomings, and that a friend group should give someone an escape from oppressive social perceptions. But that doesn't resonate with me as much emotionally.
https://www.google.com/search?q=women+are+just+horribly+crue...
There's also culture at play. I don't know if men affectionately dissing their friends is universal but there's plenty of related things like:
In Japanese culture you don't brag about co-workers or family to outsiders. Outsiders you treat with respect. Insiders you don't. The fact that you don't get the more polite treatment is proof that you're an insider. It's a common scene in stories where someone asks to stop being treated like an outsider by specifically asking for the less polite language. You can also watch the ribbing man to man, man to woman, woman to man, woman to woman. I don't know if there is data on which is more common.
I have women friends who will play like this with me. It can reveal insights that neither of us were clear on without the other bringing it to light.
Of course it can be one sided too, and it turns into bullying. I think context matters and even if you’re being bullied, it’s still revealing if you are able to see beyond the emotion. You’re not your looks, your body, your mind, your bank account, your friend group, etc… Your worth is beyond these things. I hope you find that someday!
I seek out the social groups where people try to help eachother and where most of the conversation is towards pushing a common goal or helping each other’s pursuits. That way someone saying something negative is a signal, and the negative can be addressed. You can only move fast and in the right direction with clear signaling. If the signal is diluted by people with low self esteem who would rather belittle those who do than do the doing, then you need to clear the signal.
Sometimes those women are actually making very accurate observation about relationships of involved guys.
It is not exactly rare when "it was just a joke" is entirely dishonest and when went on was actually attempt to put down another guy.
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Let's say my nose was large, and a friend jokes about it. I need to say something back. And I could not think of anything. A low stakes situation becomes higher stakes than it needs to be.
So on their side they see me struggle and probably feel bad, so they don't do it again. But then we are just friends not best friends.
Curious how did you learn / practice this?
I also always start and focus on myself; I make jokes at my own expense often. A big part of my personality is a strange juxtaposition of bravado and self deprecation. I will joke about how amazing I am and how much of a failure I am at the same time.
It seems to work? I think people like me, generally? I don’t know man, I just wing it! I have no idea what I am doing, but I am also pretty great at not knowing what I am doing.
I've identified two approaches to this situation. One is to take the insult graciously, as though it's feedback:
"Careful: you could put someone's eye out with that!"
"Oh! Thanks for the reminder." (adjust the position of your head, as appropriate for your extremely large and dangerous nose)
---
The other is to take whatever they said, and exaggerate it. This produces really good comebacks. (It's important to insist upon this point, regardless of any evidence you might receive to the contrary.)
"Careful: you could put someone's eye out with that!"
"Oh, could I? Well, your entire face is bad."
If they respond with another insult, repeat the same strategy. They'll notice what you're doing after the second or third attempt, and then it will turn from "this person's bad at comebacks" into "this person's (pretending to be) bad at comebacks and it's funny".
"My face is bad? Is that the best you could come up with?"
"Your face is so bad that it makes everyone else's faces bad, too."
"But… that means your face is also bad."
"And whose fault is that? It's your fault. Specifically, the fault of your face. Which is bad."
"Still means you've got a big nose."
"Well you've got a small nose."
"No I don't. We've got the same sized noses."
"Thus invalidating your previous aspersion that my nose is unusually large. Who's bad at comebacks now?"
"Still you."
---
There's a third approach, if the insult is disguised as faux-concern: pretend you're taking it seriously, while exaggerating the characteristic they're concerned about.
"Hey, you having trouble seeing past that, mate?"
"Oh, no, it's alright: most of my vision is unobstructed." / "I've got some tape in my bag if I need it." / "It's no worse than binoculars."
The author muses that the situation of feeling safe playing status games with another person—that is, treating them only as games, not as serious and with real status in play—is perhaps the definition of what friendship is.
This could include trading barbs, taking turns playing the bully and the victim, trading playing "high" and "low" roles, jokey one-upsmanship, that kind of thing. Stuff you don't do with non-friends because there's too much risk of being taken seriously, and too much risk of losing actual status or of hurting someone else's status for-real when you didn't intend to.
Once you recognize status transactions ... they are absolutely everywhere, in every single interaction.
On the other hand, I have ~3 friends I made as an adult that I have been talking to very frequently (with some, daily), for a decade or so, and there, any level of ribbing is fine.
I don't think it's about us knowing each other's worst qualities and being fine with it, as a lot of our banter is on things we can't change about ourselves. I think it's just a matter of trust.
When played with allies, it connects you to each other and lets you put your guard down (which is perverse to those that don't get it).
The same game played with an enemy teaches you to deflect rather than internalize bad-faith insults and teaches you to use wit and words to stand up for yourself, keeping your dignity without violence.
...
Also it's a demonstration of equality.
e.g. you can't play the game with your boss or your son, but you can play it with your brother and your peers.
And a follow up: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/09/friendship-is-still-co...
Maybe I've interpreted it as "I'm better than you, because you're doing X. I'm mentioning this over and over again, because it makes me feel better."
They are no longer in my life. I don't miss them even a little bit!
For instance, I've noticed a distinct difference in how sarcasm is received in the Northeast US vs the West Coast. What you described feels more Northeast-y to me (I'm sure it varies by other segments and sub-sub-cultures, too).
There's the saying: "If an Irish person calls you 'asshole,' it means they think you're a friend. If they call you 'friend' it means they think you're an asshole."
Not just for the Irish though, I don't think (:
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That sounds terrible. A candid conversation about our flaws is one thing. IME 'friends' who most often mock each other are just trying to elevate their status in the group, by pushing others down.
Social anxiety is a condition that cannot be thought away, you cannot rationalize social anxiety nor can it be represented as a cost/benefit analysis of risk of being disliked vs. reward of being liked. You can feel socially anxious without having social anxiety. You can be depressed without having depression. You will be depressed after your beloved pet dies. You will be socially anxious walking into a room full of people you haven't met before.
For example the DSM definition https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519712/table/ch3.t12/ or the Mayo Clinic explainer page https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/social-anxiet....
I think what this blog post is getting at is describing for people the difference between fear of negative evaluation and positive desire to be liked.
One thing the post misses is that sometimes these are learned behaviors that come from a lifetime of experience being disliked for no obvious reason. For example, sometimes outgoing autistic children develop social anxiety after their peers reject them repeatedly.
It's not just a fear, it's "persistent and intense fear". and like most psychological disorders, a key part of the definition includes "a negative impact on the person's functioning in daily life".
Like OP said, fear of being embarrassed is entirely normal and healthy response. It's not social anxiety nor a psychiatric disoder.
It's not different than OCD, phobias, etc. They can all be entirely normal responses. What makes them a disorder is the level of intensity and the impact on the person's life.
As a middle-aged woman who can't figure out what the benefits would be that would outweigh the costs of pursuing formal diagnosis at this stage, I related a lot harder to that line than I wanted to.
I've always been extraverted. I always do fine in new interactions, because I'm chronically interested in anything I don't already know well, especially if someone else is passionate about it. Most of my first meetings with people quickly become conversations where I'm listening attentively and asking interested questions about some niche thing they love and their friends and family members are sick of hearing about. I get stellar reviews on initial conversations at unstructured social events.
And yet I spend the vast majority of my time at home by myself because after about the fourth interaction, something about me registers as "off" to other people and they start to distance themselves from me. I have never understood why.
I'm not socially anxious, at least not in the typical "can't get out and meet new people" way. I just can't take the never-ending hope-rejection loop anymore.
Most social anxiety is not debilitating, and would not meet the diagnosis. This is why therapists receive so much training - you must encounter enough people with a truly debilitating fear that you know when to diagnose it.
And, yes, when the typical outcome is exclusion without any reason, or without a reason that you have any control over (such as that bully, people don't want to be around the targets because it might spill onto them) what else would you expect?
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You'll experience *grief* after a pet dies. We've pathologizing grief to a point that it makes it harder for those experiencing both grief and depression, two separate (but sometimes linked) human conditions.
https://undark.org/2022/07/21/the-hidden-dangers-of-patholog...
Psychiatrists are way better equipped to diagnose these things not because they can read diagnostic manuals (anyone can) but because their training exposes them to real cases.
There’s a world of difference between feeling awkward and quiet at a social event vs having heart palpitations and panic attacks that prevent you from even going outside.
That is not true in plain English, just because a particular profession decides to use words one way, does not mean the definitions change for the rest of us.
This is a particular pain in physics, which has taken very commonly used words and given them a very narrowly defined meaning, within a strict framework - like the words Energy or Work
If you think you’re suffering rises to the medical treatable level please develop a more serious condition before getting on a waitlist. All doctors are taken up on your non-physical problems and you don’t immediately need care like I do.
Exactly this. The article conflates normal social nervousness with an actual disorder, then provides a reframe that may help with nervousness (?) but completely misunderstands the clinical condition.
IMO it's a useful first step, as a major facet of treating anxiety disorders with CBT involves challenging negative thoughts and beliefs and replacing them with positive alternatives.
Properly understanding that your anxious lizard brain is (successfully) trying to protect you from the threat of being disliked helps reframe that behavior in a positive light.
I hope not, I don't want to be hooked on some prescription meds eg. what about exposure therapy
I do wonder if being nervous to talk to a hot girl is the same as social anxiety I mean I'm not the jock/main attention guy either but I can talk to strangers (guys or not attractive women)
inb4 we live in a society etc
I do not think people would not like me, I do not try to avoid people disliking me, that's not the point at all. Quite the opposite, I'm sure I'm an interesting person and I'm confident people would like me if I could take the step.
Problem is, there is something that physically prevents me from saying "Hi!" to a stranger. I literally cannot get myself to take a step towards them and I can't explain why that is, because I do not understand it myself.
Also quite interestingly (to me), this completely goes away under certain circumstances: (1) If I take around 2-3 units of alcohol and it is not a totally alien environment (it would not help if I was in a bar alone with complete strangers). (2) If more than about 70% of people in the room are people I know well. Then I do not feel anxious about approaching the remaining 30%.
For me though, it takes more than a few beers to be comfortable approaching someone. I'd have to be completely sloshed and even then it's a struggle.
The only time I didn't experience the seemingly physical barrier was in college when a friend convinced me to try MDMA and we went out. I became almost the exact opposite of who I am with the social anxiety. I was the most extraverted, outgoing person in our group quite literally chatting up anyone and everyone that I crossed paths with without any care or inhibition around it.
No other pharmaceutical has been able to cure it for me like that, and it's a bit depressing because I liked that version of myself and I'd like to be able to be that person again without an incredibly dangerous illegal substance.
My wife is exact opposite. She is an introvert who does not have a problem with approaching people. Relationships drain her energy, she can't chat to even a close friend for more than a couple of hours, but approaching a complete stranger when necessary or she wants to? That's not a problem for her at all, she just does not usually want it, and she loves her alone times.
The problem isn't really being liked or not being liked, the problem is the cognitive overload of trying to predict what will happen and respond to it in realtime, which is sure to set in when one's mental model of the potential interaction is very uncertain. Of course, if your brain quits in a conversation, the other person is not going to be very impressed with you, so this kind of failure carries social risk itself.
The way to fix this is to have as many interactions which are bearable as possible so as to build out the mind's mental model of itself and others in social situations. Gradually the danger just fades away. There's no substitute for firsthand experience; no amount of premeditating, ruminating, or brooding will fix this.
I think is a big piece. I have social anxiety and I have a tendency not to answer with what I'm thinking but what I think they want to hear because it's more predictable. This gets amplified tenfold in interviews. In an interview, I know that they're looking for a specific answer when they ask a question, but also that the answer differs from interviewer to interviewer. It's like there's this sub-process that is constantly running trying to figure out what to say, but in some situations it ends up locking up the system because it's using too many resources due to the constraints.
It's less that I need them to like me or fear being disliked and more that I am just way too conscious of the stakes and the social interaction that's happening, which causes my brain to sort of freeze up. It feels like when I used to play tennis in high school. I'd do great at practice, then freeze up and barely remember how to hit the ball in games because the stakes on each point felt so high.
If I'm around some good friends it completely goes away. If I have hung around the person enough (even without directly talking to them), it goes away. I've also had random days where I don't feel the performance anxiety and performed really well in those situations (and coincidentally some of those days I'd meet a new group of friends or a girlfriend). It's extremely frustrating. Xanax makes the performance anxiety go away completely but slows me down cognitively so I become much less witty and interesting to talk to.
This is why cognitive behavior therapy can help many people. With a trained professional, you uncover the reasons why you developed the response. Once you know the thinking pattern that drives the response, you can work on changing those thinking patterns.
I've done CBT before and it's been quite helpful.
Every chapter has exercises that help deal with social anxiety
Even doing just the 3 basic recommendations in the intro can be very impactful
Keto does a lot to the neurotransmitters in the brain and it clearly balances out things for me and I feel no social anxiety at all.
I’m sure cognitive tricks work for some people. They mostly had the opposite effect on me in the long term. I would encourage people to not buy into it too much
So, you want to avoid both being disliked, but also being liked - because this puts you in novel situations you fear lead to an even bigger failure down the road.
Every new school, new job, new environment has been a struggle until I made friends in natural ways (either I had to wait someone approached me, or it has been through activities like shared home work etc.)
But moving to a new country has been a disaster in terms of relationships. I'm already very anxious, but I now need to approach people in a foreign language and there's no school-like environment where relationships form naturally. Clubs and events do not help as they are at most an hour a week so nothing like the school.
I am sure there are many people like me, but I doubt it is the majority. I am just back from my kids birthday and as far as I could see, among 20, there were only one or two other adults who did not speak to anyone, majority somehow has less challenge.
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Tangentially related, I have for some time had a desire to write short stories, but the anxiety around revealing anything that might expose my inner self is probably the biggest reason why I don't.
I was reading a collection of short stories yesterday and came upon Michael Swanwick's "Slow Life". It struck me that it shares more than a few similarities to his "The Very Pulse of the Machine": Woman astronaut on a moon in the outer solar system is placed in lethal danger, encounters alien intelligence that communicates by reading/influencing minds, she isn't sure whether the communication is genuine or hallucinated, eventually the alien intelligence provides a long-shot resolution to save her. Maybe Swanwick just had another story to tell with some of the same beats. It happens. Or maybe it's like bare feet in a Tarantino movie. The point is, the idea of someone examining my own stories and thinking such thoughts about me is extremely distressing. It's not being disliked that I try to avoid. I'm trying to avoid the baseline stress of social interaction.
I recognize the irony of opening up about this in writing. If you have something to say _about me_, please don't.
The human mind is not really designed to handle under-socialization well, and seems to fill in the empty space with imaginary figures which fail to meet its social needs. Taken outside its natural tribal operating regime, it bugs out in all kinds of strange ways.
> the idea of someone examining my own stories and thinking such thoughts about me is extremely distressing
This is a very familiar feeling to me, and in my experience it actually is a fear of being disliked, or more specifically about not being able to control others' reactions to me. But the fear is so great and unapproachable that the mind cordons it "out of sight" of conscious feeling.
It becomes better to not be thought of than to expose myself to the possibility of others seeing me poorly, especially if I'm not able to defend myself and make the case for my being seen with grace. I suspect that it is over-exposure to human meanness and judgement and under-exposure to kindness and grace which brings about this expectation of others' dispositions towards oneself; this perhaps is the reason for the Christian injunction that humans not judge one another--it guards against this particular failure mode of the social mind.
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That's it. Leaving you in peace now. Peace!
The vast majority of people who interact with you in any way, think about you extremely little or not at all beyond the moment of interaction.
We just don't play nearly as big a role in other peoples' lives as we sometimes imagine.
It's the observant and introspective people among us who believe otherwise. Most people are neither.
Is the person who wrote the post qualified to say this though? Like are these statements the result of scientific research or just his opinion like my opinion?
It seems some in the comments resonate and some disagree. So its somewhat useful.
One thing i feel missing is the anxiety part of social anxiety. The way the brain colors vague or unclear external (social) signals in default negative ways, in a feedback loop.
Not avoiding being disliked or seeking being liked, but simply being unable to quantity it correctly.
If someone came to me and tried to mentor me about unlearning my discomfort with being disliked, I would feel like I'm being manipulated and I would make sure to avoid that person.
I’d prefer to avoid being disliked - or at any rate, disliked without good reason - but as you say, that’s mostly because then I’d be wasting even more of my time managing interactions with (or more likely avoiding interactions with) those who dislike me. My god what a waste of energy, how I abhor it.
But it’s interesting to think that when people like you, they tend to want more from you and that leads to social obligations. And you can either go along with these social obligations or decline and come off as rude.
So in a sense, social connections give people some amount of control over your life and that can feel restricting and draining sometimes.
Even something as simple as a text message can be thought of as a task that someone gave you without your consent. And if you don’t respond within a certain time window then you’re rude and risk damaging the relationship. Or if you respond poorly that can damage it as well.
Sometimes I wonder if this is social anxiety or just being extra aware of the realities of life.
Just as one example, when I'm interacting with someone who I haven't reached a certain level of comfortability with, I'm highly aware of and sensitive to their reactions to me in terms of what they're saying, their tone, their micro facial expressions, etc., and I perceive any small negative reaction as a sign that they don't like me. This usually isn't true! But it ironically has the effect of inducing self-sabotaging avoidant behaviors in me, such as over-censoring of what I say and just general awkwardness around them, which makes it much more likely they will end up disliking me.