Who do you become when you’re awkward? (A personal story)

I started taking tango classes last July. My weekly classes have felt profoundly nourishing for so many reasons: The dancing! The thinking with my body-not-my-mind! The shoes!

And another reason is that it’s put me into contact with a bunch of adults I’ve never met before, who are just there to have fun + learn.

The minimal chit-chatting before class, after class, and between dances has been nourishing in a way I didn’t expect. It turns out that after COVID, working as a solopreneur, and having young kids, I haven’t been making that much chill, friendly adult chit-chat anymore.

And yet, I’ve also noticed that I often feel mildly awkward, in these social interactions with people I don’t know.

And when I’m awkward, I get jokey.

I smile extra big.
I make more jokes.
I take every interaction as a possibility to be playful.

Truthfully, from the outside, it probably just seems like I’m a friendly, fun person.

And I am a friendly, fun person. That’s a true, real side of me.

But also: my playful, jokey side is something I lean on and escalate, when I feel awkward. And when I turn up the volume on my jokiness, I miss out on the chance to have a slightly deeper, slightly more authentic interaction.

…

A short aside about authentic interaction: it’s not that I expect to have the deepest conversation of my life while everyone is changing shoes after tango class.

But I do believe that there can be a subtle difference in the quality of conversation when I am present with myself and others, and choose to share something from my in-the-moment, direct experience.

Even if the conversation is still playful and fun, even if jokes are still made, it also feels… deeper, richer, and more connecting.

More thoughts on that here, if you like.

…

Noticing this about myself made me think of many of my clients, who all have their own crutches when they feel awkward:

One client gets extra sassy and sarcastic.
Another starts leading the conversation, sharing a lot of funny and interesting stories about herself.
Another defaults to listening — asking amazing questions, but sharing very little about herself.

Each of these crutches reflects something true about my clients — they are hilariously sarcastic, a dynamic storyteller, or an incredible listener, respectively.

But also, each of them can tell when they are turning up the volume on this quality as a crutch. And they can all tell that this crutch is causing them to lose out on the opportunity for more authentic, deeper connection.

…

I think the process for shifting from our personality crutches to more authentic interaction happens in three stages: after, before, and during.

Here’s how I’m trying to apply it to tango:

1. After
In the beginning, you’ll probably only be able to even notice that it’s happening…after it has already happened. I think the first step is just noticing: wow, I was kind of relying on that thing that I do when I feel awkward. I would like to show up a bit more authentically next time.

2. Before
Next time, before that kind of social interaction, you might set an intention. I’m going to say to myself: I’d like to show up a bit more authentically and present next time, instead of just defaulting to trying to say something funny.

3. During
I’m going to try remind to myself, 1-2x during tango class: to breathe, and to stay in my body. (Often when I feel awkward, I become just a floating head who is trying to say something funny and interesting.) At those times, I’ll try to repeat to myself: It’s okay to feel awkward and It’s okay for them to *see* you feeling a little awkward; you don’t have to hide it.

And then, also, I want to try to find opportunities to say something true, instead of something purely jokey, even if we’re just talking about something simple like how hard it can be to find time for hobbies when you have kids.

…

I wonder: what is your personality crutch when you feel awkward?

This week, you might notice where it shows up, and consider turning down the volume a bit to let your more authentic self show.

As always, I’m rooting for you.

Katie

---

Sign up for my newsletter to get helpful + encouraging essays like this every Sunday morning. It’s free!

If you're feeling lonely, here's a concept that helped me

I’ve had two big moves over the past few years — from New York to North Carolina, and then from North Carolina to California. Both times, after the initial exhilaration of a new home wore off, I looked around and realized I had very few, or no, friends where I lived.  

So I started to try to make more friends. I started going to more events, but every time I met someone who I was interested in getting to know more, it seemed like they already had plenty of friends. Why would they want to be friends with me?

I felt kind of needy, as I tried to initiate spending more time with interesting people.

But it turns out that lots of us need more friends! In Friendships Don’t Just Happen: The Guide to Creating A Meaningful Circle of Girlfriends, Shasta Nelson pointed out two things that really surprised me:

1. People, on average, replace half of their close friends every seven years, according to researchers in the Netherlands. Half! So most people you meet will probably be looking to meet at least a friend or two.
   
   

2. Many of us aren’t doing a great job of finding the new friends we need. A quarter of us have no one with whom we share deeply. Another quarter has only one person — likely a significant other or spouse — so we’re deeply vulnerable to a potential break-up, divorce, or death. That’s about half of us with one or zero close confidants or friends. The other half of us have an average of two.*
   

Nelson’s book is mostly a how-to guide for making meaningful adult friendships. And if I’m being honest: at first, admitting that I was reading a book like that seemed, well, embarrassing. Does admitting that I need more friends make me seem needy?

And yet, here’s something else that Nelson wrote, which I really needed to hear: 

“Loneliness is not about social skills, likability, or the kind of friend we can be to others.”

I realized, in reading it, that I’d been subconsciously judging myself for being lonely. On a subtle level that I hadn’t been able to name until I read the book, I’d been assuming that people who are likable enough, who have strong enough social skills, and who are great friends, don’t get lonely. Have you ever felt that way?

But everyone needs new friends — frequently! And everyone gets lonely! If we’re going to replace half of our friends every seven years, we’re definitely to feel twinges of loneliness sometimes. 

Nelson’s book had a couple of good, practical points about how to actually make more friends, which I’ll share next week. But for today, I just want to remind you:

Just like hunger tells you that it’s time to eat,

Or fatigue tells you it’s time to sleep,

Loneliness tells you that it’s time to put in some effort to generate new, meaningful relationships.  

None of those experiences — hunger or tiredness or loneliness — necessarily have anything to do with you as a person: your worth or value or likeability.

It’s okay to be lonely. It’s normal to need new friends. And if you meet a new person who seems interesting, there’s a good chance they might be looking for a new friend, too.

*This data is from research published in the American Sociological Review in 2006, cited in Friendships Don’t Just Happen.

I’m in your corner rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie