Yesterday evening, duty called me to two successive meetings out of the house. One: a private home, where I met briefly with one person who is seriously ill, and where I encountered three other people. Two: A "social meeting" of an organization I belong to. Maybe there were about twenty women there. Details are unnecessary. I write today about the common thread in the two meetings: I had to make small talk.
I drove home, as I do so often, downhearted and with a lump in my stomach. I kept hearing my own voice, punctuated by the nervous laughter that plagues me in social situations. What I blurted to the sick man when the uncomfortable subject of his short remaining months had to be broached. How I pressed too hard, in my chitchat with a certain woman, on a certain point, and how she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes and issued a soft and careful reply; how I stumbled and searched for what to say next and how I failed. (And I know her to be a friendly, warm, kind woman: which makes it worse, of course.)
What a bizarre handicap: I can’t chitchat. I fake it the best I can, but it’s playacting. I do all right with friends, but I cannot engage in a real conversation with a stranger. I say stupid things. I react weirdly, without human warmth. I offend people by accident. I embarrass my companions.
How to explain what it’s like from the inside? I can only think of one other experience that’s like it. Have you ever been drunk? Have you ever been drunk and attempted, for some important reason, to appear sober? Remember how hard it can be? Trying to exert control over your facial expression, to compress the sloppy beery grin by sheer will into a serious-looking frown; pausing to collect your words before speaking so that they emerge from your lips in the correct order and free of slurring; listening extra-hard through the alcohol-induced dull clamor of background noice to make sure that what people are saying to you makes sense so that your reply does not sound insane; carrying yourself carefully so that you do not fall although the room is pitching around you.
In this situation it is impossible to enjoy the company of others. You are simply focusing too hard on yourself.
And that’s kind of what it feels like for me — totally sober, mind you — to get through a "social hour." Or any situation where I can easily feel like an impostor. Graduate school poster sessions, in which I posed as a researchr
I hear they have drugs for this sort of thing now. I’m not interested in treating this personality defect as an illness. I’m more interested in learning to live with myself, to compensate where I can and to stop worrying where I can’t.
Social anxiety isn’t exactly covered in depth in the Gospels. It helps to think of myself here, a little bit, as the poor — not lacking in material things, but instead with some intangible but natural defect. He came to preach good news to the poor, and what could that be but the message that what they lack isn’t the really important thing? And what else would He say — give the widow’s mite from what you do have, and accept humbly from others; don’t pretend to be something you’re not, and let God provide what you need to perform your daily duties. I know that one key is to stop worrying what people think of me, and another is to listen more. I read aloud from the children’s Bible today the sending of the twelve in pairs: Jesus tells them not to worry what to say, to let God provide them with words. Strong words for me.
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