Then & Now: Socially

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Socially Awkward

I've been having a thought provoking back and forth with a pen pal about social anxiety. I have always been uncomfortable in social situations. I don't like small talk. I'm not really all that patient with meeting new people- I kind of just know if you are my sort of person. As I've grown older I have stopped trying to be friends with everyone and just tried to be friends with people who feel like part of my tribe. You know the feeling- you just click with some folk. You recognize them. This can take time, and now that's OK- you know how when you're hammered you are immediate BFFs but without the booze you actually have to take the time to get to know people?

For a long long time the only people I recognized were the people who could drink as much as I could. It was my main requirement for a friend. I discovered that reality a few months in to being sober when I was friendless, and so it stands to reason that my close friends now are people I haven't had a drinking relationship with because they are people I chose with my heart and not my tolerance.

So, say, ten years ago, I was in a social situation. I would beeline for the drinks. I would have had a few at home to loosen up- you know, because I am pretty socially awkward and booze made it easier to talk to people. I was more charming, funnier. I was a sparkling conversationalist. Because I am more at ease in small intimate groups the booze made bigger social occasions more fun. Wrong. Totally wrong.

It made it so much worse.

Thinking back on it I realize that drinking made me extra incompetent at handling gatherings- public or private. I would worry always about several things- would there be enough to drink? How much could I drink and not black out? Would anyone notice I was drunk? Would I do or say something embarrassing? Would I remember enough of the details of the evening so I could do damage control the next day? While I was paying attention to all that stuff I was never really paying attention to where I actually was. I was in my own obsessive drinky la la land. No wonder it was never any fun and made me nervous- I never was actually at the place where I was. Plus the people I thought were my friends we people I never really connected with- they were drinking buddies. The way I drank didn't allow for genuine close relationships to develop. I was never comfortable enough being myself.

I think about the lot of us that started drinking to ease the discomfort of social situations in the first place. What a mistake that was! In my entire drinking career it never got easier to be at a bar or a party. That solution never worked. I think about the group mentality that (here in America for sure) the best and brightest are the ones who love to be social and a popular in their peer group. I think about people like me who don't like parties or big to do's. How would things be different if I'd known at fourteen that having one or two close friends was the right thing for me? That my weirdness was OK, and that not every single everybody wanted to be a Guess jeans wearing adorably dumb in class cheerleader? How would have been to know that at twenty-four? At thirty-four?

Drinking made me even MORE socially awkward. It didn't make me more of myself- it made me even less of myself. It works for some people- but it didn't work for me. I suspect, if you're reading this, that it didn't work for you either. Now that I'm sober I can be in a group of people and just be quiet. I can not have to talk at all. All the mental chatter about my drinking and how much people are liking me is quiet too because I can sense how I'm feeling. If I need to leave early I leave. If I need an excuse to walk away I just head for the bathroom or just say excuse me. (wow!)

I'm not a big fan of the label "social anxiety' because I think it lumps us all into a ball and it sounds pretty negative. I am a big fan of labels like "introvert" and "extrovert" because I think it helps us to understand the sort of people we are. Of course we all feel totally weird and uncomfortable when we're freshly sober. It takes practice to get that ease. Of course some of us love parties and loads of people and some of us want things to be more low key and small. Of course meeting new people is hard and a little scary. So some anxiety is totally normal.

So much of what we feel seems so permanent at the time. It seems like things will always forever ever forever always be just like this and never be different. But it will be different. With practice anxious becomes uncomfortable. With more practice uncomfortable becomes knowing. And with knowing comes ease.

Sunday, February 17, 2024

Socially Amy

My social history contains mostly the feeling I don’t know how to fit in. It seemed like other people had the secret and I didn’t. I look back, see myself on the periphery- not outcast, but not included. I worried that the hand of belonging might not ever scoop me up. I often felt like the hanging chad, the stray hair.

I tried. I desperately tried to whittle myself into a shape I thought the coolest kids would recognize. I wished so hard for the glorious day my perfect hair, my faultless fashion, and I would sail through the metal double doors, making my arrival. I could almost hear my name singing out across the crowded commons- Amy! We’re over here! -an unimpeachable indication that I was chosen by the people who did the choosing.

An embarrassing amount of my young life was spent trying to reduce myself to that requisite unknown shape, instead of contouring who I possibly was. It just didn’t feel safe to be any kind of different. I latched on to my perception of socially successful as my holy grail. I ignored my well being and my future for that one magic day I was the person everyone wanted to be friends with, for reasons I couldn’t list but wasn’t that the point? Popularity was, by nature, mysterious.

As a teenager, I thought drinking helped me release the hidden qualities of my popular self, that I got quirkier and cuter and more cutting edge in the “right” ways the more I drank, but really I just got sloppy and slutty. The more I used alcohol to lubricate my feelings of awkwardness, the more cringey I became. But somehow it was the solution I turned to time after messy time. It wasn’t alcohol that was the problem, it was me.

Today, I think being uncomfortable in social situations is totally natural, and I don’t know why we continue acting as if it isn’t. I find that I feel much less awkward when I can acknowledge the awkward. Of course this feels uncomfortable- we aren’t comfortable with one another yet! I don’t know you, and I shouldn’t, and it probably shouldn’t be so effortless and easy breezy to shortcut something as complex as another human being.

The feeling of being recognized, of being known- it’s the sidestep alcohol gives us, and why it is so prevalent in social situations. Want to belong? Have some booze. Feeling nervous? Get your drink on. That shortcut shirks off actual trust and knowing. It takes away all the joy of discovering things about another person in the awkward silences and tension that creates strength in the fabric of our relationships, being present for that moment. The ways we learn about each other on walk after walk, or in many conversations that naturally blossom into more and more vulnerability- that creates a sense of safety and connection. We become interesting even if we’re merely prattling away about our latest morning routine. We get loved for the thousands of ways we get known over the investment of time.

Alcohol steals that. It may provide an escape from the awkward, but it certainly doesn’t build the bonds of real relationship. Most of the time after an alcohol infused bonding experience I felt embarrassed. Was the bonding experience that we were both so drunk? Did this person know me better, did I trust them more? Or were we both inebriated and that bond was what we had to recreate again and again to feel close?

It is shocking to me how we normalize being drunk as socially acceptable. I watched Travis Kelce, wasted, slurring out lines to I got friends in low places and I wished he had better friends. I imagined people laughing at him, ha ha how funny it is to see this star athlete “celebrate”. Being that drunk means people have to take care of you, maybe that’s what those friendships are based on. I trust you to hold me up so I don’t fall over when I’m so drunk I can hardly stand up.

I am disgusted by the way we have used alcohol as a crutch to get better at socializing. I am shocked at the way we still lean on booze as a tool for social ease instead of actually learning how to deal with and share our discomfort.

Looking back, I now recognize I could have had a choice too. I didn’t really enjoy the cool crowd, I had so many other things going on inside my head- worrying about my hair or if I’d worn these jeans twice in the last three weeks seemed pointless. I had friends I had things in common with, that I really enjoyed, but I would neglect those friendships for what I thought was a higher rung on the social ladder. Maybe I drank so I forgot that, too.

Now, it’s still not easy for me to meet new people, but I know it’s not usually supposed to be, so that in itself makes it easier. I can hold my own in social situations. I know that anxiousness or feelings of discomfort are normal- a way of feeling out a new situation, of gathering information. I’m glad I can do that without a drink (or six) to make it easier. I don’t want it to be easy! I want it to be real.

My requirements for friendship have drastically changed for the better. I choose people with my heart, and they choose me. Looking back to a high tolerance for alcohol being my number one requirement for friendship makes me sad for my past self. It took years of work and learning to get to know my social self, what friendship means, and who I want to be socially. The awkward moments and discomfort? They are part of it, a welcome part, and totally, totally worth it.