People can be unpredictable - part 1
The world isn’t always predictable, and the people in it can be even less so.
Let me tell you about a situation in which the stare method did not work. In fact, it caused serious problems and almost got me beat up. This is a good example of why you need to evaluate each situation individually.
This particular episode happened a few months ago. It was a warm Thursday evening and a few of us from work were heading out to the local pub. I had been making tremendous improvements in my social anxiety and had actually started hanging around with this group after work.
We arrived at around 5:30pm and the patio was already packed. There were four of us (Cathy, Diana, Mark, and myself). Luckily we got there just as a group was leaving.
I enjoyed these little outings because it gave me a chance to work on my socializing skills (of which I was still sadly lacking). Not to mention, I genuinely enjoyed the company. I don’t know, I just seemed to click with this group for some reason – it was like I had known them my entire life. I felt like I could be myself.
Sitting there, sipping a nice cold beer, on a patio, on a warm summer night, I felt like that was it. It didn’t get any better. Food, drink, stimulating conversation, great atmosphere – I felt like I had finally arrived. This is what life is all about, I thought – this is what I’d been missing all these years. I wanted nothing else – I was happy.
After a few hours, the girls said they had to leave and, had we been smart, we would have left also. But, we were enjoying ourselves so much that Mark and I decided to stay for one more beer. The girls left and we ordered our drinks.
By this time, the patio had cleared out nicely. There were only about 5 parties left, including us.
There was a group of people at the far end (2 men and 2 women). They were in their late twenties, I would guess, obviously drunk, and getting louder by the minute.
I noticed that one woman kept looking at our table, turning to her friend, whispering something that was obviously funny, then joining the other in a good laugh. This irritated me a little because Mark and I were just sitting there minding our own business. We weren’t loud or boisterous. We weren’t looking at them. We were just two guys sitting at a table, having a beer for gods sake. My first thought was that they were staring at someone else, but our table was pretty much by itself.
I mentioned this to Mark and he said that they were probably flirting with us. I didn’t think so because they were with some pretty big jock types. Why would they be flirting with us? Besides, I had a better view than Mark and I could tell that they were not flirting, but instead, having a good laugh at our expense. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I knew it was negative.
I decided to ignore them, but it started ramping up and I was feeling pretty self-conscious. It was at that point that I decided to try the stare method. After all, it had been working great since I started using it, and had helped me through some tough situations.
Things didn’t quite work out according to plan…
2 Responses to “People can be unpredictable - part 1”
Wow, this is GREAT blog on social anxiety disorder! I hope you get a lot of readers because I can see it as being extremely helpful.
I’m interested to see the next installment. People ARE so unpredictable. I hope the experience hasn’t set you back at all.. guess I’ll have to wait and see.
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