Many people feel awkward in social situations. Usually, this does not create a major problem. It is momentary and passes quickly. That’s one of the reasons most people don’t worry about such feelings. They are fleeting and have little impact on the quality of their lives.
For others, however, social awkwardness is a major concern that creates frustration and limits their enjoyment of life.
The socially awkward are not necessarily only those who have a social anxiety disorder. That is a more significant problem that goes far beyond awkwardness.
Some folks just don’t feel comfortable interacting with others. They lack the skills for easily connecting with people that others take for granted.
It’s like going through life wearing shoes that don’t fit. You can get by, but it’s not comfortable. They pinch, impede the way you move, and leave you tired at the end of the day.
If that describes you, then the following will be good news. There is a simple approach that will take you from socially awkward to socially savvy. Nearly everyone can follow these steps and experience significant gains. It just takes a little effort and persistence.
Both those key ingredients are in your control. So if your ready to get started, let’s move on.
Socially Awkward: The Benefits and the Downsides
I’ve had people ask what the benefits are of being socially awkward. The best answer I can give is… “None of which I am aware.”
It is a little like asking a major league baseball player to list the benefits of being slow at running the bases. There just aren’t any upsides to being a slow runner. You can still succeed in baseball even if your running is sluggish, but it is a hindrance, not a help.
The same is true with being socially awkward.
It creates problems. Not earth-shattering, but still significant enough that it might hold you back from finding the best mate, making as big an impact on others as you might otherwise, and the ease at which you make new friends.
In fact, a lack of social skills could end up restricting your job opportunities, and diminish your income. A study by Professor Demining of Harvard compared job opportunities and wages in the STEM field as they are impacted by a person's level of social skills.
Then, to make things more interesting, he threw in another variable. Math skills.
The idea was that in the STEM fields it may be that social skills don’t matter so much when compared to one’s math abilities.
The results of his study are shown in the graphs below.
Socially Awkward: Impact On Job Opportunities in STEM Field
Socially Awkward: Impact On Job Wages in STEM Field
Notice that those who possessed high social skills had more job opportunities than those with low social skills. But more importantly, this was true even for those with low math skills.
That is, the folks who had good social skills and lower math skills still did better than those who had strong math skills but struggled with social skills.
The same trend occurred when examining the impact of social skills on income (job salary) within the STEM field.
This study suggests that social awkwardness is not only personally distressing but may have the potential to reduce your job opportunities and income even when your professional skills are strong (of course we don’t want to make too much of the results from one study, so consider this an interesting result, not a definitive statement).
The consequences of being socially awkward are generally not earth-shattering. It will not keep you from living a full and happy life. But it may hold you back from living as fully as you might wish, and living up to your full potential.
Consequently, if you are one of the many who fall under the umbrella of being socially awkward, it is worth the effort to make some changes.
Three Steps To Social Savvy
Becoming comfortable navigating social situations requires building some basic skills. This is no different than becoming confident at competing in a certain sport, performing well in a new job, or learning how to cook a meal.
Confidence in any of these activities begins to grow once you develop some basic abilities. Then, over time, as you continue to practice, your sense of assurance grows even stronger.
So what are the basic skills that are needed to become reasonably good at interacting with others?
Just two. If you can brush up on your conversational skills, and your ability to ‘read the room’, you’ll be good to go.
Of course, we could add other qualities that would be great for you to have such as charm, charisma, a million-dollar smile, eyes that twinkle with mirth when you laugh, and a pet unicorn that does party tricks.
But realistically, most of us just need to get by with being able to hold a good conversation and recognize how others are feeling.
Let’s briefly look at what you can do to build these two foundations.
Conversational Skills
Rewarding conversations do not require a high level of skill. It’s like learning to dive. The basics are easy. Applying them well takes practice.
Some things to keep in mind when building this skill are the following:
Show interest in the other person by asking questions. Make sure the question is on point. In other words, it is not too personal, and it is relevant to the individual with whom you are talking.
PRO TIP Don’t ask an uninterrupted string of questions. This will feel creepy to the person with whom you are speaking. It makes others feel as though they are being cross-examined. “AH HAH! So you admit that you were not home on the night of the event in question.”
To avoid this you can interject some comments about their answers, or briefly describe something from your own life that relates to their response.
Smile from time to time while talking with others. Again, best applied in measured amounts. If you smile unendingly they may think you are related to the Joker from Batman.
So every once in a while you need to flash those pearly whites and give a genuine smile. This will make others feel more warmly toward you, and better about themselves.
Use body language to your advantage. Keep your arms unfolded and face the person with whom you are talking. Maintain good eye contact (that is, be sure to look at them more than you look away). If you are the sort that enjoys getting up close when talking then you need to take a step back. Most people don’t like others ‘up in their business.’ Three to four feet of distance is generally a good rule of thumb.
Don’t make it all about you. There is a place and a time for the focus to be only on you. This includes your birthday, therapy sessions, and your death bed. Otherwise, be sure to share the spotlight with others.
Keep up on current events. The more you know the more easily you will find it to converse about a variety of topics.
It’s not essential that you have a thorough grasp of sports, fashion, science, the arts, politics, pop culture, etc. But it is helpful to have some familiarity with what is going on in the world around you.
So spend a little time each day keeping up with current events. It will make you a better conversationalist.
Know how to start and end a conversation. These are two conversational bookends that many people find difficult to pull off. They needn’t be.
Starting a conversation is as easy as saying hello and providing your name, then asking for the other person’s name. Not so hard, right?
But, you’re thinking “What then? What if they give me their name and I can’t think of anything to say?”
What then? Easy really. A simple formula to follow is comment-question.
That is, make a comment, then follow up with a related question. Imagine you are at a weekend party but don’t recognize anyone.
Determined to practice your conversational skills you confidently walk up to a young chap who is standing alone, staring wistfully at a bowl of onion dip.
“I see they have the Cowboys/Packer game on in the next room. Are you a football fan who’s just taking a break or not that into it?”
That wasn’t difficult, right? If the person responds that he is a football fan then many other questions/comments easily come to mind (who are you hoping wins the game; who is your favorite team; did you know I use to play for the Vikings… OK, don’t tell lies, but you get the point).
On the other hand, if they are not a big fan, then you simply ask what sports they do enjoy. Oh, not a sports fan? Just turn and walk away. What’s wrong with that guy anyway?
Ending a conversation is even easier than starting one.
It is as simple as “I need to go but it was a pleasure getting to talk with you.” Any variant of that works fine. (Sure, if you must, go with “Wow dude, it’s been gnarly, but I have to dust off now if you know what I mean. Been real”).
Whatever your style, keep it short, simple, maintain eye contact and give a warm smile. Then turn and confidently stride away. Mic drop!
Conversational Tree
Think of these conversations as trees. You start with basic questions, like the one above about sports. That is the trunk of the conversation.
This leads to several possible follow on topics. These are the branches.
In the example above you started with the question of whether the onion dipper was a football fan. That’s the trunk.
You could then move up to any of several branches: talk about his favorite sporting events, specific athletes, local sports, etc.
Or, if sports were not of interest to the onion dip man you could have nimbly jumped to an entirely different conversational branch by asking about his other interests and hobbies.
Whenever you are in a conversation like this, it is helpful to keep in mind that the person with whom you are talking has a rich personal history.
By reminding yourself of that basic fact, it will open your mind to other potential conversational branches. Again, using the example above, this might include “Did you play sports as a kid?”, or “Are your children involved in sports?”
Each of these branches leads to still more topics: where they grew up, what other activities they enjoyed as a child, etc.
As you inject comments here and there, adding a dash of self-disclosure about your own interests or experiences, you’ll find that very soon the conversation is ‘cooking with peanut oil.”
Once you start to practice using the comment/question formula and recognize the branch structure of conversations, talking with strangers becomes very easy.
(If you wish to learn more about conversational skills one good resource is a book written by Debra Fine entitled The Fine Art Of Small Talk)
Reading The Room: Polishing Your Emotional Intelligence
In the above, we focused on developing social skills. In order to use these tools to your full advantage, you need feedback.
Think about it this way. It’s like a carpenter building a house. No matter how skilled he is in using a variety of tools, he will end up with a jumbled mess if he is blind.
Blind carpenters don’t get the feedback they need to build beautiful buildings.
The process of building a structure always includes getting feedback along the way. Is the floor level, are the walls at right angles, are the counters the correct length and height, etc?
In response to feedback the skilled carpenter makes adjustments.
So too with conversations. To function at your best, to employ those conversational skills to their fullest, you need to be able to read the other person.
Not just the words he or she uses, but understanding to some degree the meaning of their tone, inflection, facial expressions, body language, and more. This ability is called having ‘emotional intelligence.’ (I know, it sounds like another psychobabble term, but there is more than froth behind the idea of emotional intelligence – it’s worth a little effort to figure this thing out).
The Harvard Health newsletter states that “In a nutshell, emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify and regulate our own emotions, to recognize the emotions of other people and feel empathy toward them, and to use these abilities to communicate effectively and build healthy, productive relationships with others.”
You can strengthen your emotional intelligence by putting an effort into becoming more self-aware and empathetic. Learning to better control the intensity of your emotional reactions, and modulate how they are expressed is also important.
Having worked with hundreds of people over the years I’ve seen emotional intelligence strengthen dramatically once a person begins to make a focused effort.
There are whole books written on how to go about improving your emotional intelligence but the crib note version is what follows.
A. Once or twice a day do a quick self-check on your feeling state. Is it happy, optimistic, angry, frustrated, contented, joyful, envious, anxious, etc.? Then take a minute to write down a summary statement of why. Maybe an old friend called and this made you happy. Hell, maybe it made you jealous. Whatever the case, write that down. Now top that off by quickly writing down what you wish to do with that emotion. Would it be good to share it with others? Pass it off as unimportant? Use it for motivation?
B. Once a day take special note of another person’s emotional state. Just the same as you did with your own in “A” above. Now ask yourself why they might be feeling that way. What it might be like for them to feel that way? Lastly, what impact that emotional state is having on others around them?
C. Use every opportunity you can to consciously control the intensity and expression of your emotions. The idea is control. Mastery over both the expression and intensity of your emotions.
You can do this in many ways including distraction, meditation, deep breathing, grounding techniques, etc. The main thing is to practice. It’s slow going for most folks, but keep at it and you will improve.
Conclusion
Becoming socially savvy is within your reach. It doesn’t take a huge effort to acquire the skills necessary to be able to talk with just about anyone and engage them in a satisfying conversation
Once you’ve succeeded you will find more opportunities for friendships opening up, and very likely also find that your career gets a boost. But best of all, it will enrich your life and allow you to make an impact on others.
