You're Not Alone If You're Socially Awkward (Part 1)

Social awkwardness is pretty common

Feeling shy, not being good at making conversation, being unable to make friends, feeling anxious and insecure around others - however you want to define "social awkwardness" it's an issue that a ton of people struggle with. Everyone feels uncomfortable in at least some social situations. It's totally human. The numbers can vary a bit depending on your source, but something like half of the population reports they have some problems with shyness.

Okay, you may be thinking, but what about real, hardcore social awkwardness? Forget those types who have tons of friends and fascinating lives who call themselves "shy" because they occasionally don't know what to say around a bunch of people they haven't met before. That doesn't really count. What about those who barely have a social life? Who are crippled by anxiety and self-doubt? Who spend every evening after work trying to distract themselves from their loneliness? Who everyone rejects and thinks is weird? Who can barely get through a two minute conversation?

People who are very socially awkward are proportionately rarer. However in the grand scheme of things they're not exactly uncommon either. Let's say someone has a level of social difficulties that puts them among the 1% most awkward individuals. If that person lives in a city of 400,000 that means there are still 4000 people in their area alone that are going through the same thing. That's millions and millions of other people on their continent. They may be spread out, but they're everywhere. They're having the same thoughts and worries and insecurities, and feeling confused and frustrated by identical situations. Even the thoughts and behaviors you have that you suspect may be totally esoteric and unique to you are probably shared to many, many others.

Now that the internet is around it makes it way easier to confirm that all those other socially awkward people are out there. There are popular sites, blogs, and discussion forums devoted entirely to helping their audience overcome various social difficulties. If you type a problem you're having into Google it's almost guaranteed you'll find a bunch of results about the exact same thing.

By their nature social issues are isolating. They're also something where it's often fairly simple to hide the full extent of your difficulties from others (e.g., by literally staying inside most of the time and falling off the radar, by not letting on to your classmates that you never have any plans on the weekend). It's easy to feel like you're the only one experiencing what you're going through. You spend a lot of time alone, thinking about how flawed you are. You're too embarrassed to bring up your issues with the people who are in your life. Because they're concealing it too, you can't see it when someone else is also having a hard time in social situations. And of course people don't generally think in terms of, "Even if I'm in the 10% most awkward group, that means there are tons of people like me out there." Instead they go by their own experience, which seems to tell them they're really wrestling with this stuff, and everyone else seems to have never had a problem with it.

So it's all well and good that someone may not be alone in their social awkwardness, even if it's at a seemingly extreme level. Just knowing that may be a relief to a lot of people. However if there wasn't anything they could do about it, hearing, "You're not alone" may not provide all that much comfort. Fortunately, they have plenty of options.