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Social Anxiety
By Corvus | March 13, 2009
Anyone who has met me in person would likely be quite surprised to find that I suffer from some pretty extreme social anxiety. I am, to all outward appearances, an extrovert. I’m outspoken and firmly opinionated, while still encouraging others to express their opinions and share their ideas. I joke, laugh, make eye contact, and have a firm handshake. I always have a story to hand and I delight in getting people to talk about their own interests as well.
But that impression is the result of a lot of work.
The fact is–I’m not an extrovert at all, quite the opposite in fact. People, in general, often confuse me and I leave social situations feeling exhausted, befuddled, and nervous. Furthermore, I find myself holding on to specific social gaffes and worrying over them, wondering if I’ve permanently offended someone and chastising myself for being so inept. In fact, there are two such incidents from last year’s GDC that still haunt me today. It’s likely that the people involved don’t even remember them, but I find myself reliving them all too frequently as GDC approaches.
Not exactly the most solid foundation upon which to build networking skills, eh?
But I learned, very early in life, a few survival tips that have worked wonders for me and help to offset my social anxiety greatly. In fact, I’ve even reached a point where I can quite often make it through a social engagement without my heart racing, or over-analyzing every single thing I did and said.
The first, and most important, tactic is likely the most difficult–make eye contact. Seriously–eye contact goes a long way to providing you with information about the people around you. Huge portions of our brains are keyed to recognizing facial expressions, recognizing and interpreting thousands of nearly imperceptible changes in skin tension, coloration, and muscle flexes. Looking someone in the eyes is the surest way to getting your brain the information it needs to accurately assess the people around you.
Direct eye contact has an interesting social side effect as well. When you make eye contact, people respond to you as if you were a confident and direct person. I’ve found these responses help reinforce the behavior and, over time, can actually serve to remind you of what you have to be confident about.
Which brings us to our second point–what do you have to be confident about? You have to know, or at least guess, that answer for yourself. Hm… this is actually making the eye contact sound like a walk in the park, isn’t it? But seriously–even if you tend to devalue your own perspective and experiences, there’s surely something you can be confident about. Perhaps you can be confident that you’re doing your best, or that you’re eager to learn, or that you’re good at asking questions. Find something to be confident about and foster it.
Thirdly, remind yourself that you’re only human and bound to make a mistake now and then. As I said, I still have to work at this, but constant reminders make it possible for me to attend events like GDC and hold my head up, meet new people, and make eye contact with every single one of them.
Also remind yourself that the people you’re meeting are only human and are far more focused on their experiences than they are your failures. If they aren’t, if they’re the sort of person who focuses on the failures, or successes, of everyone around them, then their own insecurities and anxieties are likely far more terrible to deal with than your own.
My advice would be to stay far, far, FAR away from those people. It’s one thing to have social anxiety and insecurity and quite another to actively lay the responsibility for it on the people around you by focusing on their failures instead of your own.
Fourthly, I’d suggest taking the a long view. Assessing your progress by measuring your coping skills moment by moment is counter productive. Instead, focus on where you want to be in a year, five years, ten years. And look at large trends in your behavior. Compare your current level of social confidence to last year, or the year before. With a little effort and consistency, I guarantee you’ll see improvement over time.
Finally, work to understand where the anxiety comes from and learn to manage your reactions to it. The anxiety instincts might not easily fade, but it becomes easier to assign them to their appropriate place once you understand their origin. My anxiety patterns developed at an early age and were designed to keep me from tripping any of the numerous, and seemingly random, corporal punishment triggers that my upbringing contained. I learned that the only firm rule in my household was–avoid notice. Obviously, that isn’t a skill I feel the need to use much now and so my anxiety, once quite useful, has become non-useful. It’s not a failure on my part, or some deficiency, just a well learned set of skills that I need to work on replacing.
So, armed with a a handful of skills, I head off to GDC next weekend and prepare to talk to people about my storytelling theories and game designs. I’ll also be looking for writing contract work and actively searching out new (paying) projects to become involved with.
So how about you? Do you suffer from social anxiety and how do you cope with it?
Tagged:anxiety, introvert, social coping skills. | 22 Comments »
March 13th, 2009 at 7:35 am
I know your position all too well. I was the result of a lot of bullying in school despite moving schools multiple times. So I ended up avoiding people rather than talking to them. Yep, I’m a case of retreating into computer games to avoid the outside world.
How I handled it I suppose has a variety of answers. Now I’m a big guy, 6’4″ and well built. So my simply being near people can be intimidating to them.
So I’ve tried to adopt a totally non-aggressive way of speaking and acting, and oddly enough in doing that I realised that people are little different from me, they have their own fears and anxieties even if they don’t show them. So by trying to ease the fears of those I talk to, I stopped being afraid also.
I also when talking to people, do as you suggest and make eye contact and ask them about themselves. Most people like to be asked about themselves and are happy to talk about what they do. I happen to be interested in listening to people and what they do, so it works well.
Have fun at the GDC and I hope you come away without any nightmare memories.
March 13th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Hi Corvus,
Thanks for the advice, it’s very useful for for an introverted games designer such as myself.
I have found that worrying and planning what to say in certain situations is the worst thing I can do. I begin to catalogue a library of responses that come across as fake and shallow. What I now do is enter a situation with nothing planned and usually my personality shines because of it.
Also I have found that being humble and questioning others leads to a more interesting conversation. Opinions can be easily translated into questions, which can quickly turn ‘paying an interest’ into a full discussion.
When I was younger I used to hitchhike a lot, which I found incredibly awkward at first. The idea of being in a closed environment with an unknown individual over any period of time, sparked fear at the thought of the social aspect. Over a very short time I learned valuable lessons about evaluating characters and sparking topics for discussion. I think ‘paying an interest’ is the primary lesson I learnt as well as the ‘chances are you may never see this person again, what’s the worst you can do’. Of course I wouldn’t advocate hitchhiking as a method of improving social skills, more that if you enter a social environment with no preconceptions, the spontaneity will allow your personality to flourish.
Just my two cents, good luck at GDC.
Henry
March 13th, 2009 at 7:54 am
I have a fair bit of social anxiety as well, and I’ve also found eye contact to be extremely useful. I’m a big guy, so my appearance probably already helps me seem confident, but combining that with eye contact works wonders for what other people think of me.
Unfortunately, appearing confident adds to my social anxiety, since I constantly worry about other people’s expectations of me. I don’t want to break that facade of confidence. I’ve gotten better over the years though, by finding something to be confident in (writing) and carrying that around with me all the time, even if it’s not applicable to all situations.
Thanks for the tips, Corvus!
March 13th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Your epic ‘stache also plays to the extrovert persona.
Great post though, I actually really needed a reminder about eye contact right about now.
Have fun at GDC!
March 13th, 2009 at 8:14 am
The truth is, I’m as much hiding behind the ‘stache as I am using it to announce my presence.
March 13th, 2009 at 10:46 am
I have had a lot of trouble making eye contact. I was in therapy for a while and that genuinely helped. I’m sure that we talked about self-worth and fear and other emotional subjects, but the thing I remember the most was being told to do it even if it was uncomfortable. Gradually my eye contact improved.
I’m curious about the relationship between internet-based social networking and social anxiety. I haven’t had any direct contact with you, but your online presence looms large enough that I was still surprised to hear your admission of social anxiety. Do online communities help integrate those individuals who struggle with other forms of interpersonal interaction?
Upon rereading, I realized I really wasn’t answering the question directly. I had a lot of trouble interacting with people in college and especially afterward, and my solution was to drink heavily. I replaced the anxiety with shame and regret afterwards, which was a bad trade-off. Eventually I understood that I could do really, really stupid stuff but ultimately people would still want me around. Now, post-drinking, I have the confidence to do things in a group that would have terrified me before. This probably goes without saying, but alcoholism is a terrible solution to social anxiety, but in my case it was a valuable intermediate step to being cool with other people. Valuable might be too strong a word, but I think that sentence contains truth just the same.
March 13th, 2009 at 10:57 am
In a lot ways, this means to stay away from me, heh. I learned a long time ago, that this isn’t my hangup with social interaction, I’m simply a sociopath in the truest since of the term now. I’m very introverted and as a general rule, I don’t really care for or trust most people. The majority I just I simply “hate” (a term I reserve a subjective definition for).
The net presents a psychological loophole for me, as I’m not AS bad when I’m online, so I take advantage of it.
It’s funny tou bring up eye contact though, because that’s something I only engage in with very few people. I consider it a very spiritual process most simply aren’t worth engaging in it with to begin with.
I suffer from a lack of social anxiety…among other things. At some point in my younger years I probably would have agreed with this, but the state simply evolved into hatred and I revel in it now.
~sLs~
March 13th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Corvus – we go back aways and I was wondering if you thought your theater work helped with the social anxiety? Just curious.
As for me, I suffer from both social anxiety and shyness. I, too, often get confused by how people behave in social settings and end up feeling emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted after being around other people I don’t know well. I agree with you about the eye contact, as well as the firm handshake. I would also suggest smiling. I have found that if I smile and nod my head, people take that as an encouragement to continue the conversation. Someone said asking questions and I also agree with that. Getting someone to talk about themselves for at least the first part of a conversation gives me a chance to calm down and focus. I have found that, because I am usually so internally stressed out about not wanting to appear stressed out and unsocial, that it can take me a little bit to actually focus on whatever conversation I’m supposed to be having. Taking the offensive, so to speak, and asking the other person a leading question when we first meet helps me better asses that individual and makes me feel more comfortable when I do have to respond to what they are saying.
The irony is that I’ve had two different jobs where I was required to meet new people on almost a day-to-day basis, speak in front of large groups, and even do training sessions. I’ll be honest and admit there were numerous times I would be physically ill before having to speak in these situations. I coped in two ways; the first being that I would almost step outside of myself and say, this is my work persona doing this, not the "real" me. I honestly don’t know how healthy that is, but having that mental distance allowed me to focus on the purpose of what I was doing, not what I was actually doing. The second was giving myself HUGE kudos each time I made it through one of those situations. After I survived my first training session, I treated myself to a new pair of shoes. Every time I wore those shoes it would remind me of how brave I could be when I needed to be. And I do believe that any person suffering from social anxiety who willingly puts themselves out there is being brave.
One last note, I am much better about dealing with my social anxiety now than I was several years ago. I think that with age comes better understanding of people in general. Understanding other people makes it much easier to talk to them. I also have so much more self confidence now than I did even five years ago. I don’t know if my social anxiety will ever truly go away, but at least it is getting easier to deal with.
March 13th, 2009 at 11:44 am
My social anxiety isn’t as severe as yours, I don’t think, but I am a strong introvert, whether that’s due to biochemistry or early social experiences or both. Despite growing up in a loving and encouraging family, I was bullied and ostracised in elementary school — a combination of having skin several shades darker than my classmates along with thick, round eyeglasses and a pedantic manner of speaking made me a perfect target. Of course, my manner of coping was to retreat and withdraw into books, computer games, and my own imagination — the opposite strategy of my younger brother who, despite having the same skin colour as me, put his energy into interacting with and impressing his peers with charisma. I’m not sure whose approach was healthier, but I’m nevertheless inclined to think there’s an element of inborn temperament in there somewhere.
Of course, I grew up and learned that I was likeable and sometimes even lovable, not in spite of my eccentricities, but because of them. The version of me you’d meet today defaults to being quiet around strangers, but can easily become very talkative and friendly when a subject comes up that I know something and/or am passionate about. Hence, I interact best with strangers and acquaintances when I already know that we have something in common to discuss. This is why I really like going to game industry conferences and similar events.
Another thing that really helps for me, as I also learned early in childhood, is to think of social situations like improv theatre. (I know you can probably relate, Corvus.) When I do this, I have a lot more fun socialising, and it feels a lot less scary. Of course, I’m almost always tired afterwards — instead of going to after-parties and the like, I usually retreat home or back to the hotel to engage in a quiet activity like reading or playing a game. (Or in rare cases, have a fascinating conversation with a good friend that lasts the entire night… but those kinds of friends seem harder to come by than they used to be when I was younger. *sigh*) But yeah, having some quiet time in between heavy periods of socialising is pretty much essential for me, in terms of keeping myself in a good mood during my "performances" and avoiding feelings of anxiety. And keeping myself well-fed and caffeinated, too.
March 13th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
So much to respond to in the comments. Let’s see if I can address the questions without missing anything.
Internet socializing–In many ways it’s been more difficult to adjust to internet socializing, but easier to cope with once I figured it out. Initially, it was something of a playground, where nothing (and no one) seemed quite real because I couldn’t gauge those autonomic responses.
Alcohol–I almost made one of my tactics “drink twice as much water as you do alcohol.” Whereas drinking can provide temporary social lubrication, it can be a dangerous crutch–both socially and physically.
Theater–I’ve always been a storyteller at heart and I think theater was initially more a welcome expression I embraced during my self-guided “recovery” than a tool of of the recovery itself. However, as I performed more, I learned more about myself and more about the people around me, which eventually was a powerful set of skills to have.
Diet–A good diet is such an important part of my life, that I forget to include it when discussing smaller subsets of my coping mechanisms. Eating well, particularly during high stress social events, can make all the difference in the world.
March 13th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Being shy, wearing glasses and having slightly messed up front teeth got me bullied constantly. I changed schools 2 times due to different reasons, none of them because I was unhappy, but because of need. The first time was because the education I was receiving was lacking in some aspects and the second one was because we moved from an apartment to a house.
I would say that changing schools was the best decision my parents ever made, wether they knew about it or not. It forced me to socialize, to look people in the eyes and to actually grow a personality.
I was like a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel. Dull, shapeless, submissive and stayed the same until something forced me to change.
Still, after all these years of socializing, I can’t bring myself to talk in large groups when I don’t have something prepared. And by this I mean that talking to an audience makes me nervous, but I’ll always be able to do it if, and only if, I don’t have to improvise. I feel comfortable enough to use my memory but I can’t think properly. My personality and spontaneity are shutted down when on stage.
This is always proprotional to the size of the audience. The less people, the more I can be myself.
I find it exremely easier to talk to one, two or three persons than to chip in in a group of ten, even if they are all long time friends.
…. but, yes, there’s a but, if I can somehow get going, if I can brake the ice then I can be myself again. Something just clicks in my brain and the talkative part of it starts functioning again.
(I spent 30 minutes trying to start this comment, always sounding awkward until the said switch clicked and I could finally write something coherent… well, at least I think it’s coherent. Sue me.)
March 13th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Add me to the introverted club. On my 16pf psychology test I ranked 10/10 for introverted behavior. I’ve always been really shy when it comes to groups and I perfer to let my actions do the talking over actually talking.
I think Corvus can attest to my social problems at the philly IGDA meetings last year. Since then though I think I’ve started to come around, I’m not actively talking during online games, the blog has been helping as well. Last philly meeting I finally started a conversation with someone instead of waiting for them to engage me which is a huge success for someone like me.
I have also done the “speaking in front of a mirror” exercise more times then I can remember for the day that I do have to present a game idea to a group of people.
March 13th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
The challenge of posting comments during work, no spell check. I just want to edit that I’m now speaking during online games, which my Left 4 Dead group can attest to
March 13th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Awesome, Josh! I’ve also noticed a gradual change in the tenor of your writing on your blog. Do you think writing regularly about your passion for game design is helping you find some confidence in those situations?
March 13th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Just want to say that I haven’t ignored your response Corvus ,work is pretty hellish right now and I can’t really write up my response at the moment (which I have a long one planned). Tonight though when it’s peaceful I’ll be able to post my response.
March 13th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
Now that I’m home and can hear my own thoughts again I can post my full thought now. I think the blog has had a big affect on my improved outward ness. Before the blog I’ve mainly kept all my thoughts and game ideas to myself and never really had the outlet to express them to other people. The other thing that helped was switching over to using spell and grammar check on every blog post
The other thing that really helped I think was starting a new job and being around new people. Being in customer service has introduced me to some crazy people who I wouldn’t have met otherwise. If I can talk to someone screaming at cursing at me then I can easily manage a conversation about video games.
My only real social problem that I still have is talking to people off the street or those that don’t have that shared interest in the game industry. When it comes to talking about video games to most people it feels like being part of a club that has a secret handshake that if both people are a part of, it is totally natural to do the handshake. However if you try to talk to someone about video games who don’t know a thing about then you come off as being weird.
I’m making it a personal goal this year to have a more active role in the Philly group and to try to help get setup some of the meetings. Also I plan to have more of a presence at the VGXpo in October and to hopefully make a lot more connections.
March 15th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
I used ot get bullied a lot in primary school regarding my weight, which hasn’t really got any better. Thankfully, it taught me to stand straighter, with my shoulders back in such a way that my chest hides my stomach. It’s a neat trick, sort of like watching a pidgeon puff it’s chest then collapse into a ball! Ha!
However, I’ve always been a goalkeeper playing hockey (and I used to be a damn good one, too), so I’ve always been charged with being loud, demanding and instructive, as well as dependent and reliable. Funny enough, I was also the only one in my team of metros to frequently where tie-dies and a jesters hat, for which I’m famed.
In crowds, I’m usually the brightest and most outspoken, unless I’m dealing with an idiot whose opinion is clearly not open for debate.
Funny enough, I don’t think I have a fear of social situations at all and I seem to find a way into any conversation with anybody.
Point at someone in a crowd and tell me to start a conversation, guarantee you 19/20 times I’ll get that conversation flowing.
Plus, I’m amiable, or so my 2004 High School report card says
Strangely, I don’t keep company with many people that I’d describe as “socially awkward”. Either that or they hide it well.
Regardless, I’m glad you’ve written this blog because I see there are more people then I was aware of that aren’t partial to social interaction with strangers, even those with common interest.
Regarding Josh’s comments that the blog has helped him open up, I still have trouble “truly” expressing what I feel about certain contentious topics. Rather, I often fear that I don’t have enough knowledge of certain areas somewhere in the vicinity of intellectual wank to argue effectively.
However, heading back to university again should help solve those problems.
March 17th, 2009 at 12:13 am
There’s a saying in my country. It’s “Muka Tembok”. Literally meaning “Wall Face”. It is used for people that are very shameless. A little bit of Muka Tembok is crucial when dealing with others.
The feeling of shyness IMO is the main culprit on why people get social anxiety. I have some trouble with it too, especially when dealing with people like interviewers. I tend to lose eye contact. And there’s also that constant knee-bopping.
The only one way I have ever known to deal with this is to adopt a certain degree of this shamelessness. I guess it should be called ‘confidence’ instead?
March 17th, 2009 at 11:00 am
In my experience, everybody suffers from some degree of social anxiety. It’s just that some people are better at managing it than others. Also, confidence is about perception, which basically means that when it comes to social prowess, pretending is just as good as the real thing.
March 18th, 2009 at 5:48 am
We should start a petition. Clear when they were handing out the book which explains how to function socially–the one that everybody else got–we were all skipped over.
Sometimes remember my own insignificance can help rebut those feelings of ‘omfg did I actually just that’, in that I’m able to recall this person won’t remember my name in ten minutes, and despite what I think, doesn’t spend the majority of his/her free time analyzing off-hand remarks and how they sync up to forced facial expressions.
Recalling that you’re not talking to a CIA interrogator really does the trick.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
I also had to walk the introvert-turned-extrovert, although I don’t experience as much social anxiety as many of the people around me. Some of those people are extroverts – social anxiety doesn’t begin and end with the introverts.
Great to see you at GDC this year! The new enlarged “Gathering of Crows” was a great success.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Very good point Chris. Extroversion is often an expression of social anxiety – it is defensive.