Social anxiety and public transit - part 2
I started by blocking out the situation in front of me and concentrating on one of my distractions. In this case, I was thinking about an upcoming trip I was going to take. This proved to be strong enough to interrupt the social anxiety auto-thoughts (although it wasn’t easy). It was almost enough to put a smile on my face.
Next, I forced myself to lift my head, without looking directly at the people across from me. In this case, I just looked past them to the adverts above their heads. I imagine that the entire movement probably looked very mechanical and forced.
Ok, (stop for a breather) now I could see everyone in my peripheral vision. It seemed ok, but I wouldn’t be sure until I lowered my glance.
As I lowered my eyes, I noticed that the woman was staring at me but she was asleep. Another person was reading a newspaper, and a mother was trying to get her toddler to stay seated.
Not nearly as bad as my mind had me believe – in fact, perfectly normal. No one was even paying attention to me – well, except for the salesman in the suit. He still seemed to be staring directly at me with a slight grin on his face. I turned my head quickly but it was too late - I had been caught. I trained my stare on a display ad – not that I was particularly interested in reading it, it was just somewhere to park my eyes. My face turned crimson.
I thought about the situation and reasoned that everything was great, except for this guy. When the analyze stage was over, I determined that the only “threat” was coming from one person – on to the next step.
So now I asked myself if it was reasonable. Was everyone staring at me? Was there something very different looking about me? Was my fly unzipped? Was there any sane reason for this person to be staring at me? The answer was no to all the above.
Ok, so if it was not reasonable, then there were only two possibilities: He was not staring at me at all, or he had problems of his own.
I started looking at other possibilities. Could he be looking past me and through the window? Was he looking at a poster above my head? Was he asleep with his eyes open? Maybe he had a habit of spacing-out on the bus. Was he attracted to me? Was he on medication?
Everything was solved by the stare method, except for him. I hated him for that. I wanted to stand up and ask him what he was staring at, but then he got up, rang the bell, and was gone at the next stop. A wave of relief swept through me. I felt like my old self again. I could feel the anxiety literally flowing from my body.
When I finally got up to get off the bus, I turned around and saw that there was a poster of a gorgeous model right above my head. Could he have been staring at that poster? I reasoned that the possibility was strong – after all, nothing else made any sense.
Had this person not left the bus, I would have considered the last step (making an effort) in the stare process and made eye contact with him. I might have given him a slight nod or smile of acknowledgement – just to see what would have happened.
Making eye contact was hard, but in this case, not that hard. I would have had nothing to lose at that point and I’d have already determined that there was something wrong with this guy.
I can confront people once I have determined that it is not me with the problem, but them.
Strange how that works…
One Response to “Social anxiety and public transit - part 2”
Funny how we misread peoples’ expressions that we think are directed toward us. That’s a part of SA. We think people are laughing at us or smiling because we look odd. I am willing to bet the smiling salesman was looking at the pretty model.
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