DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: How can I be less awkward with friends and acquaintances?

My case is of awkwardness is an oddity in my mind. On one hand I have next to no problem doing long presentations in class ( last week I did a solo one that took 15 minutes) but on the other is the fact that I am terrible at carrying on a conversation. In many ways I fit the criteria for being socially awkward and possibly social anxious but as I said above in many other ways I do not.

Even now I am struggling to describe my case to you, overall though I just don’t know how to act in and carry on conversation. Allot of the time I am totally fine with the everyday small talk but at the times it matters most like one on one I tend to fall flat.

Off the top of my head I can think of a few things that absolutely kill me. The first being saying hi to people in the hall way, most of the time I just try not to but when I do it often comes across as awkward. Another is talking to close friends, frustratingly I even struggle to carry on or even think of a conversation with them. My last example is not knowing how to walk or carry myself on without thinking about how I should walk or look, I am the stereotypical person that wonders what to do with their arms and shoulders.

Please try to help me with this Doc, I am tired of doubting myself and feeling like I’m too socially maladjusted to build a meaningful relationship

Thanks for your time (I really appreciate it),

-Socially Confused

DEAR SOCIALLY CONFUSED: Here’s your problem: you’re overthinking things. Big time.

The reason why you don’t have any problems doing presentations and the like is that you’ve spent time practicing them. You know exactly how they’re going to go – you’ve got the cadence down, you’ve anticipated potential questions, you’ve probably read it out loud in the mirror a few times just to make sure you had everything down. Basically: you were running on autopilot because you didn’t have to worry about any confusing variables that might trip you up.

But when you’re talking with people or doing everyday things, you’re flying without a net. You don’t know what to expect. This can be ok if it’s just day-to-day chit-chatting, but when it counts? OH SHIT, WHAT NOW? What if you do the wrong thing? What is the wrong thing? It could be anything! You don’t know what they’re thinking! You might say something weird! And then your jerkbrain takes over: oh god, what if you do say something weird, and then everyone’s going to hate you because of course the first thing that people do when their friends say something weird is alienate them and then send word down the network (because you know they have to have some sort of network, right?) and then everyone else is going to hate you and then for the rest of your life, you’re going to be The Weird Guy Everyone Hates, living on the outskirts of town and haunting your little rundown house as children make up stories about the weirdo who lives there.

Sound a little familiar?

You’re spending a lot of precious brain cycles thinking of all the strange and shameful things you’ve done or worrying about the things you might do. I’m willing to bet you’ve had moments where you were drifting off to sleep and then suddenly remembered something stupid or awkward that you did and suddenly you’re wide awake and can’t stop thinking about how embarrassed you are now for what you did then.

(Can you tell I’ve done a lot of that? Because I have.)

But here’s the thing: most of that weird, awkward shit that you think is life-changing? Nobody notices it. The people who do notice? They don’t really care. I can promise you: 99.999% of the time, you are the only person who’s freaking out about all of this. Nobody’s paying nearly as much attention to how you walk or what you’re doing with your arms and shoulders as you are. The times when they do react? They’re having something of an embarrassment-by-proxy moment because you’re so very clearly uncomfortable.

Just as our fears tend to be more about experiencing fear than the thing we’re afraid of, I suspect that your biggest issue is that you’re anxious about being anxious. It becomes a vicious circle, where you’re worried about doing something “wrong”, you become hyperaware of it, and once you’re that aware, you’re suddenly unsure what to do, which makes you even more anxious. It’s the classic centipede’s dilemma – the centipede was doing just fine until someone asked it how it timed it’s footsteps. Suddenly you’re paying absurd levels of attention to something you normally do unconsciously and before you know it, you’re falling back to the conscious incompetence stage of skill development and everything you do doesn’t make sense anymore.

So what do you do about this?

Well, you take a deep breath.

No, seriously. Start with a deep breath. Breathe in through your nose for the count of five, hold it, then breathe out through your mouth for the count of seven. Repeat that a few times. Breath control is one of the keys to dealing with anxiety, even social anxiety. Our bodies are very bad at understanding why they feel the way they do; they take the physical symptoms and extrapolate from there. Two of the key symptoms of fear and anxiety are a racing heartbeat and shortness of breath; taking time to control your breathing forces you to calm down, slowing your heart rate and letting everything in your body relax for a minute. Once you’ve relaxed, you’ll find that your brain isn’t racing quite as much and you’re not quite so worried about all those personal faux-pas that you’re convinced the rest of the world has noticed.

Next, you’re going to learn some mind control… except you’re going to control your own mind. Yoga and mindfulness meditation are like getting into the command console of your brain; they help you gain more control by making you more aware of your thoughts, feelings and muscles in the right way. Rather than having moments of sheer panic over what you should or shouldn’t be doing, you’re calm and in control, with the calm awareness that disperses panic and anxiety. It doesn’t take much – even just 15 minutes of meditation a day can have incredible results – and they’re easy to do in the privacy of your own room. There’re any number of yoga exercises for beginners online, and many, many meditation apps available for your computer or smartphone that will walk you through some basic techniques.

Getting your brain under control and becoming more intimate and familiar with your body, your posture and the way you carry yourself will help calm you down and let you relax. Once you’ve relaxed a little, you can realize that things aren’t quite as bad as you thought. By relaxing, you’re able to just be, to go with the flow instead of trying to fight upstream against your own anxieties. You’ll realize that all of this isn’t a big deal – you can just say “hi” without worrying about how you’re coming off because all you’re doing is greeting someone. If you mess up, you’ll be in a better place, where it’ll be easier to laugh or call out the awkward moment – and there’s no better way of destroying awkward moments than saying “huh, that was awkward” and just moving on like it’s no big deal.

And that’s the great secret: people will take their cues from you. If you treat the occasional awkward moment – ones we all have – as though they’re no big deal, then your friends and classmates will treat it like it’s no big deal. If they give you shit for it… well, they’re assholes. And what do we say to assholes?

Now, once you’ve gotten a better handle on your anxiety and you want to work on your physicality – that pesky “what do I do with my arms” issue – you may want to look and see if there’s anyone in your area teaching Alexander Technique. Many actors study it as a way of gaining finer control and awareness of their bodies, so to better physically inhabit their roles. It’s primarily a series of guided stretches and relaxation exercises – rather like yoga, in fact – that helps you be more well-aligned and physically relaxed. It may well be worth your time.

And don’t forget: if your anxiousness about being or feeling awkward is really causing you misery, it’s worth talking to a counselor or therapist. Sometimes just having someone to talk to about these issues can help relax you and calm you down.

But it’s like I said: you’re wound up and overthinking things and this is making you trip over your own metaphorical feet. Once you relax, you’ll find that things will come much easier to you and you won’t feel as awkward.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Since I was a kid I was always very sensitive, and would tear up or outright cry whenever someone said something even slightly mean about me. I was bullied a lot when I was younger.

I’m 23 now and at least when someone says mean things about me, I know better to laugh it off, or quip something in reply.

However, despite all the advice I’ve read that says to “not take it so seriously” or “not let it get to me”, I just can’t help but feel hurt inside at that point in time (almost similar to me as a kid, just that I’ve gotten better at hiding it). After thinking about it, I realized that I feel the way I feel because of either of 2 things:

1) Automatic thoughts. Sometimes, when someone says something mean about me (no matter how absurd the insult may be) I would still get an automatic thought inside going “Hey, there may be SOME truth to it, no smoke without fire”. This would be quickly followed up with “If you were a better person, they wouldn’t have made fun of you like this in the first place”.

2) Their words unintentionally making me remember a time when I had actually screwed up in a similar manner and thus making me relive the embarrassment/humiliation/etc of that past occasion.

So I would like to ask, the next time I find myself in this situation, what should I do instead to maintain an unflappable attitude?

No More Tears

DEAR NO MORE TEARS: Before I get into this, NMT, I want to bring up the obvious point: that there’s nothing wrong with being sensitive. The idea that emotions are inherently bad or that responding to things that hurt you with anything other than stony indifference is part of the toxic masculinity package. It’s dead bang in the center of the idea that emotions are the opposite of rational thinking and that showing emotion is a mark of weakness. You see this in the way that conservatives talk about people being TRIGGERED for being vaguely annoyed or offended by something, or how the fact the Parkland shooting survivors are calling for gun control is proof that children are getting p

sified.

Hell, the number of insults for men that conflate femininity and weakness (such as “getting p

sified”) are part of the bulls

t parade that tells people that strength = unfeeling, unemotional a

hole Vulcans.

Ironically enough, insisting that men aren’t supposed to be sensitive is part of what makes us so fragile. When you’re not used to dealing with your feels, you lose the ability to do anything with them. It’s hard to separate “mild awkward uncomfortableness” from “earth-shattering grief” when you’ve spent most of your life trying to repress everything that wasn’t stony-faced stoicism.

Expressing yourself emotionally – whether it’s through laughter or tears – is important. And if you’re more sensitive than other people… well, that’s just part of what makes you uniquely you.

Of course, there are caveats to this. If someone is so sensitive – or willing to portray oneself as being sensitive for some perceived advantage – that they can’t function at all, then that’s a problem. And if you’re so tightly wound that even slight criticism is enough to trigger a shame spiral that leaves you up at 4 AM in the morning on the regular… well, again, that’s a problem.

In your case, NMT, the problem is less that you’re sensitive and more just what these feelings trigger in you. And to be clear: these are very common issues. Lots of people – especially folks who are socially awkward – deal with these same thought spirals and and beliefs. So what I think you need is not to be less sensitive but to work on how you process those feelings.

To start with: don’t try to not feel hurt. Trying to force yourself not to feel is just a great way to make things worse. Like squeezing a stress ball or a water-weiner, all not-feeling does is compress your feels and pushes them past your ability to contain them. The harder you squeeze, the more they bulge out elsewhere.

Instead, you should do the opposite: you should let yourself feel the f

k out of your feels. Like the Litany Against Fear: let it wash over you and then past you, then turn your eye to see it’s passing. Part of why these feelings hit us so hard is that we let them occupy our entire consciousness. By letting them just be, we preserve our emotional and intellectual bandwidth for important things, instead of “oh God, what does this mean?” And once we stop devoting brain cycles to those feelings, we realize how quickly the moments pass when we let them. Once you start to get used to the idea that these negative emotions are temporary, they start to lose their impact and you recognize them for what they are: momentary unpleasantness that will soon pass.

Next, you want to consider the source. Part of the reason why insults sting is because we give credence to the opinion of the person insulting us… which is absurd in many cases. The truth is that not all opinions are equal. Some are valid, some are based on bulls

t and some are out and out absurd. Ask yourself, for example, how hurt you would be if a four year old came up to you and called you a jerk and they hate you. Probably not very much; the opinion of a toddler is not something most of us worry about. Plus, we know that kids say s

t like this all the time; there’s no real meaning or thought behind it. So it is with the person who insults you.

Are they someone who you know is an a

hole who enjoys tearing other people down? Then you know that they’re not someone who you should take seriously. It’s not that they have secret insight into your character and see the real you, it’s that they’re a

holes and a

holes are gonna ass, no matter what. They’re the same ones who’ll find reasons to talk s

t about Mr. Rodgers.

To quote Katt Williams: don’t sweat the haters. Jesus was perfect, but he only had 13 friends and one of them was a hater. Make like Skywalker and let roll off you.

Are they a stranger? Then they don’t really know you, nor do you know them. There’s no reason to accept their opinion as meaningful – certainly not more so than friends or loved ones who know you well. And if their behavior is revealing them to be an a

hole, like in the previous example? Then there’s really no reason to take anything they say onboard. Let yourself roll your eyes at them (mentally) and keep stepping.

Now, if it’s someone who’s judgement you actually can trust? Then you have reason to ask yourself whether this was something legit or if it’s just someone who’s confused “busting your balls” with “being funny”. But remember: even people you know, like and trust can be wrong or just be dicks at times.

When you do have those thoughts of “what if they’re right?”, then you need to acknowledge the obvious: “but what if they’re not?” What if – and stick with me here – what if this is the opinion of someone with an incomplete idea about who you are or what you’re actually capable of? What if their opinion of your choice, your lifestyle, your whatever is just plain wrong? Even if they legitimately think you did something worth criticizing – even if it’s in as dickish a way as making fun of you – that doesn’t mean that they’re correct. It just means that they disagree with you and are expressing it in a s

tty way.

Think this, consciously, every time those “but what if…” thoughts come up. Literally, every time. Automatic thoughts aren’t inherent, they’re a habit you picked up over time. You’ve just been living with it for so long that you’ve forgotten the time when you didn’t think like this. Consciously doubting your doubts not only breaks the habit but programs a new one: recognizing that sometimes people are just wrong.

The next thing you need to ask yourself when you feel those automatic thoughts coming on is: “does this actually help me?” I’m a big believer in “absorb what is useful“, and getting called out on a mistake can be useful… on occasion. But there’s a difference between “hey this thing you did wasn’t great” and “ha ha, look at this a

hole”. Recognizing that maybe you phrased something awkwardly? Potentially useful. Now you know not to say it that way again next time. Someone making fun of you because you tripped over your words, like everyone does? Not useful at all, and to be discarded. So if someone’s making fun of you for, say, not being some bulls

t ideal? It’s not useful, it marks them as an a

hole and you’re free to disregard their bulls

t.

But what about those times when it triggers memories of the awkward thing you did 20 years ago? Well, first of all, welcome to the human race; we all do this. Gronk the caveman undoubtedly winced at the time when he was 5 and he mistook a bunny in the brush as a pouncing sabertooth tiger and freaked out, leading Thud and Trog to laugh at him.

Of course, that’s not much relief in the moment. Right then and there, you feel like you’ve been transported back in time so you get the fun of reliving your initial trauma all over again because hey, nothing says “double-edged sword” like the human psyche’s negativity bias. So what do you do when you feel those feelings bubble up like methane farts from a swamp?

You name them. “Oh hey, I feel this old feeling of X”. Be specific. Is it embarrassment? Shame? Mortification? Remorse? The more finely you can name that feeling, the more you’re able to process it. But just as importantly is the way that you name it. Notice how very carefully I said “I feel” and “this old feeling”. These are critical because words have power, and the way we describe things changes how we see them. When you say “I feel embarrassed” instead of “I am embarrassed”, you’re changing the situation. The latter is describing a state of being – you are defined by being embarrassed. Saying that you feel a certain way emphasizes that this is a temporary situation; you feel this way now, but you aren’t defined by it.

Similarly, saying “this old feeling of” reminds you: this is just the echo of an emotion. It’s something from your past, something that is over and done with. You don’t need to let it rule you because it’s your past. It’s there to give you the path forward – being able to do better next time. Even if your current situation brings up those old echoes, that doesn’t mean that they’re valid. It’s just a memory – something that happened long ago and that is no longer relevant. You’ve changed, you’ve grown and you’ve improved. This is just the ghost of your old self and like a ghost, it’s all noise with no substance. It can’t hurt you unless you let it provoke you into doing something stupid.

So: let the feeling wash over you, note it, name it and let it pass you by. 

And again: you’re allowed to be sensitive. Some people feel things more acutely than others and that’s fine. It’s not a bug in the system, it’s just part of who you are. Embrace it as part of your wonderful uniqueness. The less you make it a defining flaw, the less it becomes a thing to fight against and the more it becomes simply just a fact about you – not good, not bad, just there… and perfectly, wonderfully normal.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Earlier this year I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism and it made my entire 21 years of life make absolute sense. I don’t want you to have an image in your head of some introverted monotone robot (in my experience that’s just a caricature of an aspie).

In my case, I want you to picture a skinny literature student with floppy hair and eccentric dress sense who has a close group of friends, loves going to parties, was heavily involved in his university’s drama society (on the committee and directing two self-written plays), everyone likes, everyone somehow thinks is an absolute comic genius, but has never had anything close to a romantic relationship, or even a deep one-on-one connection.

This is going to get quite rambly – I’m sorry in advance.

Quite frankly, I think of myself like a clown. I’m a spectacle people admire from a distance and have fun with. Everyone likes me, but no one wants anything to do with me outside a pleasant conversation (and even then, I tend to be the one having to start those conversations).

But I do start those conversations – I try to be that outgoing person. At parties when me and my friends don’t know anyone, they’ll rely on me to waltz up to a random group and introduce everyone. Unable to navigate nuanced social mechanisms, I just bulldoze through in the hopes it works (something like “Hi! I don’t know anyone here. Who are you?”). It works just fine for parties, but in my experience it won’t allow me to build a connection.

Because flirting is all about subtly, right? Well that’s beyond me. My idea of flirting is seeing a girl I’m interested in, starting a conversation … and then usually end up lecturing her about the finer points of Godzilla (I say ‘lecture’, but I’m not so conversationally clueless that I’m not letting her speak or listening to her – I’m not an idiot). This is a tiny exaggeration obviously; I don’t literally suddenly start talking about Godzilla, but I always end up talking about silly things that don’t matter (Godzilla, Fun Facts that I’m not even sure are true but have repeated so much anyway, the beauty of the Yu-Gi-Oh GX dub, etc). Well, again, that’s still a slight exaggeration: I do also still talk about more normal things like the other person’s life and interests, but it never builds to anything. To put it simply, I can *only* do small-talk. But people like talking to me: they laugh at my jokes, admire my quirkiness, seemingly enjoy my company … but that’s it. Like I say, I’m just a clown.

I’ve tried Tinder. On the blue-moon occasion I get a match, nothing ever develops. This is despite the fact that I think I have some great pictures and am (although realistically speaking, a niche taste) not unattractive.

Even when it comes to friendships, I have no goddamn clue what I’m doing. I have a fantastic close-knit group of friends who I adore and who care about me, yada-yada. But I can’t help but feel I’m only friends with them because we live together, and I definitely think of them as being much closer with each other than any one of them is to me.

I try to keep my head up. I’m only 21. I’ve just graduated uni and my whole life is ahead of me. But at the same time, I don’t want to be a clown. Or rather, I don’t want to be just a clown. I want to be a clown people don’t just like being around but want to be around. A clown people would choose first, a clown who has one person they know better than anyone else does. Or even just a clown people want to f

k, quite frankly.

Sorry with the rambliness. But does a person with my neurological condition have any hope of interacting with people like a normal human being? (Rhetorical question obviously; intellectually I know it’s possible, but intuitively I struggle to understand how.)

Sincerely,

Horny Pagliacci

DEAR HORNY PAGLIACCI: Let’s start with the last question first, HP: Yes, clearly you’re capable of interacting with people like someone who’s neurotypical or without causing a fuss. I mean, you have a tight-knit group of friends, you have a lot of hobbies and interest that keep you social and your friends rely on you to actually start interactions with other folks. You’re able to get through your day like everyone else. Clearly: you’re not having problems where you’re not able to interact with mainstream society.

But that’s not the question you’re asking. The question you’re asking is: “is being neuroatypical going to prevent you from being in relationships?” And again: the answer is no. I mean, I know far too many people on the spectrum of all genders who are happily partnered up to one degree or another. Being autistic doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to being single or unlovable.

Nor, for that matter, is the issue that you can’t be subtle. Yes, some styles of flirting can be subtle. Hell, some can be so subtle that folks have no goddamn clue whether they’re being flirted with. But other styles of flirting can be as subtle as a brick to the head. As I’ve said many times before — including to Organic Chemistry yesterday — flirting is just the way you tell someone you’re interested in them. For some, this is all about the wordplay and banter. For others, it’s like being a much-less creepy and touchy Pepe LePew. That’s not the issue you’re having.

The main issue that you’re not really connecting with people. The clue here is in the way you describe yourself: as a big clown who makes people laugh and plows through the awkward like a bulldozer.

A lot of folks who can make people laugh often have a hard time going from there to building the sorts of romantic or personal connections with other people. It’s very easy to just keep going for that laugh and those good feelings… but at that point, you’re not flirting, you’re putting on a performance, not connecting with them. I suspect that, like a lot of folks, once you realized that you could make people laugh, you came to over-rely on that. After all, women do like men who can make them laugh. The problem, though, is that you have to be careful how you use it. It becomes far too easy to end up putting on a performance instead of connecting with people.

This is something I actually had an issue with in my early days; I got too good at making people laugh (and too reliant on pre-scripted routines) that people didn’t feel like I was flirting with them, they thought I was workshopping a bit for the next open mic night at Capitol City Comedy. That can put people off, especially when they were expecting a conversation, not a Night at the Improv.

That’s a big part of your issue: you don’t turn it off or turn it down. Not that enthusiasm is bad or that having passion is bad, or that you’re passionate about things other people aren’t. Passion is great, intensity can be great; most people don’t have passion in their lives. However, it’s possible to be too intense to a point that it’s overwhelming. It’s not just a case of “My Godzilla facts: let me show you them” (and trust me, I’ve got a good friend who’s got you beat on the Godzilla fandom), it’s that it sounds like you tend to be at a 10 and they need you at a 3. It’s very easy to end up with far too much of a good thing, especially in a flirting context. Robin Williams was one of the funniest people to ever walk the earth, period, but he would be exhausting if he was going full-tilt boogie at all times. It can be hard to have a conversation with someone if it becomes the equivalent of trying to drink from the firehose every time you get spun up.

You may not be cracking jokes all the time, but if you have just two settings with one being “normal but uninterested” and the other being This One Goes To 11, then folks are going to have a hard time feeling like they’re getting to know the real you. So you need to put some practice into learning how to turn the dial back a little. Passion is great, having interests in geeky s

t is great. But going into either wacky clown or lecture modes makes it hard to really connect with people and jokes can quickly become a shield against intimacy.

And it’s entirely possible that this is a defense mechanism as much as part of your being on the spectrum. Connecting with people and building attraction means building emotional intimacy; that requires being open and vulnerable. It can be scary to do that, especially if you have a difficult time with gauging how much is appropriate and how much is too much. But keeping that shield up through the performative clowning keeps them from connecting to you at all beyond a very surface level, which isn’t what you want.

I think the best thing for you will to be practicing dialing back the Pagliacci act and letting people see beyond the grease paint. It can be hard, especially if you have issues with grasping social nuances, but it can be learned. It will mean having to take risks and be willing to make mistakes as you try to find the lines between “appropriate” and “too much”. But if you’re willing to be brave, to take chances and to learn from them? Then you’ll start finding the ways that you can incorporate your humor and gifts for making people laugh into connecting with people and becoming the person they want to get to know well.

And then you won’t have to be the clown that’s crying on the inside.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)