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When Awkwardness isn't the Other Person's Fault


"The first thought I have about him is that he's awkward."

I was talking to a single, female friend who made the above statement when I mentioned a single guy in our social circle. It led to an extended discussion about what exactly makes a guy awkward.

Awkwardness seems to be the kiss of death when it comes to male attractiveness. Worse than the dreaded "he seems like a nice guy". But awkwardness is notoriously hard to pin down. Often, we can perceive someone as awkward when they don't respond as enthusiastically as we hope. Or they lapse into a silence that goes on longer than we sense appropriate. Or they may give terse responses. Or not make eye contact. Or make overly intense eye contact. Or fire questions off like an interrogation. Or we may simply experience a vague sense of discomfort when we're around them.

One thing my friend and I determined about awkward people is that there's a temptation to do more of the conversational "heavy lifting". There's pressure to fill in the pauses. There's more work required to come up with interesting topics. She resented taking on the greater load to carry the conversation.

If you find someone awkward, the problem may not be them but you.

There are two ways to evaluate this. The first means refraining from emotional caretaking and broadening one's social expectations. The second involves confronting one's discomfort in social settings.

Emotional caretaking: If someone is socially awkward, it may be less about the person's awkwardness and more about your desire to care for another person's emotions. Whenever I coach people to facilitate a small group discussion, I encourage them to be comfortable with silence after asking a question. Inexperienced or impatient facilitators often experience 2-3 seconds of silence as an eternity and jump in to re-phrase the question or offer their own thoughts. They perceive silence as their failure and others' pain and rush in to rescue the conversation. For slower verbal processors, silence is actually a gift. It offers an opportunity to gather one's thoughts. But for emotional caretakers, it's easy to interpret silence as an indication of another's pain or their own failure.

I have a vivid image in my mind of a close acquaintance who lost his wife to a years-long battle with cancer. He talked about how people at his church had trouble being around him. I'm confident it was "awkward" to be around him. He said he didn't change but other people did. After all, he had years to process his wife's illness. Others, however, hadn't done that work. Therefore, his wife's death meant a cloud followed him around wherever he went. You can think of awkward people, like this widower, as having (perceived) storm clouds above them. When this widower was talking to someone, they stood underneath his cloud. They felt the darkness and drops of rain. This widower didn’t mind the rain - in fact, he didn’t see any storm clouds. but others certainly did. And they felt compelled to carry the weight of her death. They wanted to extend an umbrella towards him to keep him from getting soaked. But he wasn't soaked, they were. No one wants to stand indefinitely holding out an umbrella for two people. It's an emotional weight most people aren't interested in bearing for long. 

Discomfort with your own emotions: Sometimes you may experience someone as awkward because the other person has stumbled upon a topic that's uncomfortable for you to discuss. It can be an innocent question like "How is your church going?" Or less innocent like "How many people are in your church?"  You may resent the person for not recognizing the insensitivity of their question. You may wonder about his/her intentions for asking - are they insinuating something about your worth as a person? What has actually happened is they've exposed an area of insecurity, pain, or sadness. And the more you've worked to keep that area covered, the greater the discomfort you might experience.

In moments of emotional discomfort, there are valuable opportunities. I see them as invitations to introspection. It may not be something you can access at the moment but one way to respond to an uncomfortable question is to say "That's a tough question to answer" or "I have to think about that and get back to you". Sometimes the best thing might be to observe your own discomfort, take a moment to reflect, and not say anything. Yes, now you risk being the one who is awkward. And that’s ok.

When you’re the awkward one: If you've been labeled socially awkward, recognize there's an opportunity to allow awkwardness to lead to something significant and better. Awkwardness isn't the end. What's your bigger purpose for allowing another person to experience discomfort?

You can also prepare the other person for your awkwardness. For example, something I've done is say: "Hey I know it's rude to pick up a bowl and slurp from it directly but I want to give you a heads up that I love ramen broth so much that after I finish these noodles, I'm going to cast off this tiny plastic spoon, plant my lips on the edge of the bowl, and tilt this bad boy into my mouth." In this case, ramen broth deliciousness is the greater good, a worthy value if there ever was one.

For the one feeling discomfort about one’s own emotions, your path of introspection involves deciding if you want to continue to be around someone who brings up uncomfortable topics or make peace with the discomfort and embrace the awkward. The reality is we’re all somewhat awkward - we all occasionally do things that trigger discomfort in others. 

For the emotional caretaker, your gift is caring for others and compassion for those who may experience social discomfort. That compassion is better directed towards expressing curiosity about the other person's actual thoughts and feelings. You can start by asking “I wonder if you feel . . .” Perhaps you can assess how hard you've been working to hold out an umbrella for someone who's dry. Or getting mad that others aren't doing the same for you when they can't feel the rain.

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