Feelings of being awkward

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Every time I'm in public I feel this, awkward, like a weird in a crowd. This is making me feel worse, avoiding public and getting anxiety. I hate people noticing I can't make a conversation looking into their eyes for more than 4s, and all the symptoms of an aspie . How I make this thoughts stop?

i met with a trainer yesterday and i too felt very awkward, i was being asked many questions and i couldn't look him in the eyes to save my life.
but he took the trouble to make his office as open and non claustrophobic as possible.
I've mainly stopped going out in crowded public places too. before i was a lot more comfortable. i don't know what, something just clicked.

I present well for short periods. beyond that I much prefer being in my hermit hole.

According to some who have studied mindfulness and a metaphysical perspective, those thoughts about being weird and being noticed are being generated from an inner observer. It is this observer of you that is commenting on your behavior and even your thoughts, and a lot of times it isn't the actions themselves, but the judgments that are creating the majority of the problems.

Michael Singer explains in his book "The Untethered Soul" that happiness and managing life comes through learning how to identify this observer and becoming familiar with how to handle it. It's kind of an ethereal approach which some people find helpful, and some don't. I'll put together some more practical approaches for another post.

So is the inner observer right or wrong?

When I go into public, I try to have some kind of intention for what I want the day to look like. Sometimes this could be, "I'm going to go to a park. I'm going to look as not-weird as possible by learning the unspoken behavioral rules of being there, and people are generally expected to leave me alone. If approached I'll tell people this is my meditation time or something."

Sometimes having a drawing pad and pen even if there's not much on it can help. It makes it look like you're doing something when you're waiting for something and gives you something socially acceptable to do with your eyes and your hands. That's also probably the reason I find it so hard to give up smoking. Nasty habit, though, once you start. I wish I never tried one.

When dealing with clerks and such a lot of times it's helpful to boil down the transaction to what you want to accomplish. At most places this is "money can be exchange for goods and services." At a restaurant your goal is to exchange money for food. Keeping that in mind can make me feel successful even when I blunder through small talk with a waiter or something.

I don't know that it matters whether the inner observer is right or wrong. I think just acknowledging the inner observer is a start. Once you acknowledge its presence than you start to feel a little more relaxed. You don't have to dwell there or give it a qualitative value. You just recognize that it is what it is. Then you will relax a little more and you won't really care as much how you come across and that is when it gets a little better. That is what helps me.

Sometimes I pretend like I'm busy with my phone (even pretend to talk on it) or I listen to my iPod. Luckily most humans do that anyway, so you'll fit right in. But I'm pretty much at the point where I don't care anymore. I actually tell people I don't like to be touched, engage in small talk, etc...and most people think it's great. I feel like it's almost considered cool now to be antisocial or "neurotic" acting, thanks to t.v shows like "The Big Bang Theory", "Sherlock Holmes", "House", etc where the main characters don't mesh well with others. Overly talkative & friendly people are looked down upon & thought of as annoying. We're living in a pretty aspie friendly society. If this were the 1950's we'd be in trouble.

I agree with this, but I also think that I feel super awkward a lot of the times because I never give the right response in a social situation or conversation and then I can tell, because of the look on peoples' faces. Then they know that I am weird, and I know that they know and just have to hope that they don't make fun of me for it. It's all a mixed bag.

I have trouble with eye contact and conversation. I don't go out much because of it. I usually look away when I'm talking to someone who I'm not totally comfortable with. My parents are pretty much the only people I don't have the problem with. I guess I've already realized that I have an inner observer. I just kind realize that when I look at people, I'm trying to read them for feedback on how I'm coming across. I think everyone does it to some extent. It's just that I am debilitated by it. If I look someone in the eye while they're talking to me, I get kind of dizzy and have trouble understanding what they're trying to say. Sometimes, they must realize there's something wrong with, because they'll stutter and seem to lose track of what they're trying to say. This happened a lot with my former boss. I actually have trouble in public even when I'm just having to walk past people silently, especially if it's a long distance and no one else is around. I don't know what to do with my eyes.

hi nerdygirl, my understanding is similar to skibum's. The idea is to get to a place where you don't assess as good or bad but just observe. When I started doing this, I didn't understand how just being aware of the mechanism of the observer would help. What I found is that it is my attachment to the observer's assessment or verdict that causes a lot of the feelings of being stressed-out or out of place.

What Singer and others show is how to begin noticing the conscious awareness inside of us that is making these assessments, and instead of accepting its verdict, just allow it to do its job of assessing the situation, and just let the situation be what it is without letting that observer proceed to making a judgment about the situation, good or bad. Then if I want different results in a situation, there's a bit more space to move around and find solutions without the added stress of trying to appease some kind of inner standard, which may be arbitrary anyway.

There is still the reality of the outer world setting its requirements of us and making its demands, but those become easier to deal with when I no longer have a virtual saboteur inside of me I'm trying to appease on top of all the outer-world standards.




I like what muna is pointing out in her post, too, about keeping the big picture in mind when maybe it might look to someone else that I engaged in a chat with a waiter that was strained or awkward.

What is the real objective: Get food. Did the waiter not bring the food because of the bad conversation? No, I have my three-cheese lasagna, so mission accomplished.

If there are unpleasant consequences as a result of the bad conversation, then I can deal with those as a practical issue later, but I don't have to let that inner voice beat my brain about how I'm no good at making small talk conversation with the waiter.

I'm pretty distant from my friends a lot of the time, and it's usually pretty obvious.

Hi nyxjord, I know that feeling. And to clarify, my first response is specifically addressed to the original question bguimaraes asked regarding the thoughts: "How can I make these thoughts stop?"

Dealing with social situations and conversation gets more into behavioral aspects, and for those, one approach I've learned is to try to act the part that needs to fit the circumstance. Sometimes it goes well; sometimes it doesn't go so well, but it's somewhat of a victory to get to a place where I don't compound the social "failure" by allowing myself to berate myself for it. And that at least allows some space in my own head for recovery and forward movement.

I am finding some movement in a positive direction with some approaches I've been using.

What are you referring to being a "mixed bag"? Do you mean coping through a situation where others are viewing you as peculiar?

I was saying that it is a "mixed bag" because of AS I am not very good in social situations and often embarrass myself (or think that I have) but then again, because of AS, I think differently than most of my friends/ classmates and think of things that they had never even considered.. so AS is not all bad or all good, I guess.

I think its everyone else who acts awkward around me (when I open my mouth that is), I find that in order to beat awkwardness in a crowd I relax my facial expression so they can't read my mind in their creepy NT way

I can feel people awkward around me too. I think I'm going paranoid about this o_o