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Social anxiety isn't about being liked

chrislakin.blog

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Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#31

Post by trinsic2 »

turtledragonfly wrote: post #10
cortesoft wrote: post #3

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. Whe…

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 t…

:) I also think this applies to Scotland and the UK. I love the irony that continent brings to the world.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#32

Post by dmesg »

erikerikson wrote: post #27
dmesg wrote: post #11

Quote: > Why else would someone be so anxious about how others see them? The scientific consensus would tell the author that judgement in humans happens already the moment they see a person and it is immediate, even if the person not doing anything: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep40700 >across three studies, we find that first impressions [...] made from thin slices of real-world social behavior by typically-dev…

This study seems to look at a different dynamic than seems under discussion in the article.

The article describes how neurotypical people, i.e. the average Joe would come up with a decision to like or not like a person based on first impressions before the person being judged even talks. Fairly sure in an article about how people are thinking how they are perceived by others this is relevant. But I get it can upset people that it is out of their control entirely.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#33

Post by pryelluw »

NAHWheatCracker wrote: post #8
isk517 wrote: post #5

As a person with social anxiety and a fear of being disliked I get to be the person that people love to talk about how much they hate all of the people that don't fear being disliked and all of the ways they are getting either getting screwed by other people or are being screwed by other people. We really deserve the society we live in

That first sentence is hard to grok.

Astounding irony.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#34

Post by elevatortrim »

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%.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#35

Post by sophacles »

starttoaster wrote: post #24
brabel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why did it put you off? Did you not understand the intention behind the words, or were the words unforgiveable despite their intention?

Not the person you asked, but I think it comes down to past experiences/family environment/etc. Theres poking fun at someone to signal "i like you anyway"... that is real. There's also people who cross the line with their words, and use "i was just joking" as an excuse to be cruel.

If someone has experienced a lot of the later, it makes sense that they don't really trust the former.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#36

Post by epiccoleman »

BurningFrog wrote: post #12
cortesoft wrote: post #3

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. Whe…

Perhaps this is controversial, but I think this is a mostly male way of expressing affection. Women observing this sometimes conclude that men are horribly cruel to each other.

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.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#37

Post by rockercoaster »

cortesoft wrote: post #3

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. Whe…

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.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#38

Post by ratelimitsteve »

cortesoft wrote: post #3

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. Whe…

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.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#39

Post by dmesg »

nemomarx wrote: post #30
dmesg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, yet the most people suffering from anxiety as secondary comorbid psychiatric condition are the depressed, autistic and ADHD sufferers. The article is definitely a mental health topic. A little harmless stage fright before a presentation is not real clinical generalized anxiety and affects most normal people.

You can be diagnosed with GAD or social anxiety disorders without being autistic. The comorbidity isn't total. I think there's a good question about whether people can tell you're anxious at a glance but worrying about that will make your anxiety much more visible.

> I think there's a good question about whether people can tell you're anxious at a glance

Which is why I linked the nature article? It's plain obvious an interesting point I tried to make that "normal" people will instantly perceive someone as likeable or unlikeable. Which the article in the OP goes great lengths to discuss.

I mean I can live with people immediately going against my point, I just see they didn't even gave it 5 minutes of thought. Which is not necessarily directed at you, I cannot possibly convince anyone and reply to anyone at the same time.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#40

Post by erikerikson »

dmesg wrote: post #32
erikerikson wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study seems to look at a different dynamic than seems under discussion in the article.

The article describes how neurotypical people, i.e. the average Joe would come up with a decision to like or not like a person based on first impressions before the person being judged even talks. Fairly sure in an article about how people are thinking how they are perceived by others this is relevant. But I get it can upset people that it is out of their control entirely.

I disagree. I think the article is about the motivations of people with social anxiety. I'd agree it makes assumptions and paints with a broad brush but it feels relevant to some of the socially anxious people I know.
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