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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

#51

Post by ChrisLakin »

brad0 wrote: post #45

I've been reading through the book The Courage to be Disliked recently. I'm not a big fan of the writing style of the book, but some of the ideas in the book appear in this post too. One of the concepts in the book is being comfortable with being disliked. If instead you're trying to avoid being disliked, you're effectively subject to other people's whims. When you look at it from that perspective, that's a pretty st…

> I'm not a big fan of the writing style of the book

OP here. I address that in How I'd rewrite The Courage to be Disliked: https://chrislakin.blog/courage

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#52

Post by stared »

There are various types of insecurity.

A book "How to attract women through honesty" by Mark Manson (I think the only book in dating genre I recommend without some caveats, and recommend regardless on one's gender or orientation) has a lot about insecurity vs security (or: neediness vs non-neediness).

There was one passage that although most insecure people are in this "I don't want be hated" or "let anyone like/love me", there are also some people that are obsessed with everyone liking them. It has some different symptoms, but also stems from insecurity.

I guess you know friends (or maybe you are one yourself) who play too hard to be liked by everyone. Also, there is an interesting case of super-popular people, who are super-needy, even though at the first glance they don't look so. What's is characteristic, though, it is that everything starts to fall apart when they lose their spotlight. (Think about actors or musicians who, after they are no longer as popular as they used to be, drown in depression and drugs.)

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#53

Post by erikerikson »

dmesg wrote: post #44
erikerikson wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I edited and rephrased a lot of my posts and the other replies and maybe my though process is clearer now. I didn't word it all too well, forgive me for not being a native, I struggled to bring my point across in an enunciated way.

Thank you for the improvements, I think it does read better now. Thank you for making the effort to converse in a second language.

I still think you are making a point that feels orthogonal to the article. The author presents (supported by public expressions of the opinion) that some people believe social anxiety is based on wanting to be liked. While to that point your study indicating that autistic people may be at a disadvantage on the getting people to like them front, the author is then rejecting that proposition (i.e. that the socially anxious are actually concerned about avoiding dislike). I suppose your point can be understood relevant there too, in that for the autistic population, the baseline "disliked" level is higher. However, the article remains about the internal focus of those with social anxiety (whether it over generalizes or not) between "liked" and "not disliked" which seems orthogonal to any baseline "likability" considerations for one or any other sub-population.

[edit: s/"liked" level is lower/"disliked" level is higher/ for higher congruence with context]

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#54

Post by guerrilla »

aDyslecticCrow wrote: post #48
guerrilla wrote: post #6

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…

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…

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.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#55

Post by layer8 »

dmesg wrote: post #39
nemomarx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eve…

Social anxiety is significantly more prevalent in the general population than autism. So sure, the article may be less applicable to people with autism, who have other visible symptoms besides what comes from “mere” social anxiety.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#56

Post by ants_everywhere »

abxyz wrote: post #47

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,…

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.

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.

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#57

Post by Trasmatta »

brabel wrote: post #18
BurningFrog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Yeah, I don't do this at all, and I don't like being friends with those that do

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#58

Post by szundi »

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.

[dead]

Re: Social anxiety isn't about being liked

#60

Post by [deleted] »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #56
abxyz wrote: post #47

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,…

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. 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…

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