Social anxiety which is kinda objective
So I read that social anxious people believe that they lack social skills, and that they are usually wrong.
What if you are not wrong?
I was extremely isolated as a child, basically having contact only with parents + younger sibling + adults, so when I went in school, I was really weird and did not known any age-appropriate topics to talk about (and we usually did activities that classmates did not share, so talking about "what I've done on the weekend" was not an option). When I was 10-13 years old, I was obsessed with "girly" magazines, trying to figure out "what should I like" and "what should I find interesting" to be "normal" and to get other answer than "stop babbling about shit, get away!" from my peers. I also had problems with teachers, who refused to answer my questions (like "I wasn't here yesterday, what is the homework?"), saying that I should ask my friends and that they are not going to dig in their handbags to find their notes - but I don't have any friends here! (OK, there was one girl who talked to me, but she was often sick, so it was not really helpful)
It improved somehow in high school, there was bigger variety in hobbies and the relationships were not competitive, you could talk to anybody (so "I am talking to A, B and C" wasn't a privilege), but still...
And when I was in the university, I had to make a voice record of one lecture. I had to - the professor did not give us ANY materials and there was no book for that. Otherwise, I would skip that. OK. I remembered that on the first day, they told us that it is illegal to start voice recording without asking the professor, and that we MUST always ask. Also I remembered how other people go to (other) professors, grab their attention, show them the voice recorder, the professor nods and they walk away. OK. It seemed obvious that this is how it is done.
So I just went there and tried to do that, but the professor (talking to some other student) told them to wait, turned to me and asked what I want. Honestly, even this was such an unexpected development that I was shocked and said something like "nothing... just if I am allowed...". He asked mega kindly and mega sweetly again, to get a clear and concise answer, then repeated that kindly and sweetly and started screaming HOW DO YOU DARE TO INTERRUPT THE LECTURE and COME BACK WHEN YOU LEARN HOW TO BEHAVE. Do I have to say that it was a major setback?
Learn how to behave. I often thought that it was easier in times of e.g. Jane Austen, when the "correct" behavior was somehow defined and you could ask someone and parents paid attention to that. Instead of telling you to behave "normally". And not talking about such things at all (parents). Well, my parents actually did not teach me things, it was more about waiting until I need the skill, then starting with "how is it possible that you cannot / don't know (insert anything)?". I had books about various stuff, the "how things work" books (including topics like sex ed), but they were usually too technical. You don't really need to know how a car is made in the factory, you need to know how to drive it.
@carefulBike3504
That was a good read. *thumbs up* :)
@carefulBike3504 Practice makes perfect. Become somebody you'd love to be near.
Also, enjoy girly magazines if that's what makes you happy :)
@carefulBike3504
Maybe you are a bit too pre-occupied with scenarios when things went wrong. You are bound to get a bad response from people from time to time even when you do everything perfectly. The professor was rude. Probably frustrated to have to ask you repeatedly what you want when they were other students already there and they might have been worried about starting the lecture on time and finishing it. Or maybe his wife left him that day and he was in foul mood.
@carefulBike3504
It sounds like, as you were growing up, you didnt seem to share the same interests with other people and this might have led to you questioning your behavior, or to seek out things that other people around you liked. Kids and even teenagers can be really judgmental sometimes, and this can leave us feeling like, what did I do wrong, I should be looking into the things that many of the people around me like, etc. As we get older, we will at some point meet people who are just acquaintances, people who we dont like, and maybe even people that we get along with really well. Dont change who you are just to please or fit in with certain people. Its ok to be different from others, its what makes us unique and special.
In your writing, I am also getting a sense of the theme of not knowing how to act and you relate that to the idea that the thoughts that you have are not wrong thoughts, but they might really reflect what other people are thinking. I think in the case of this, it might be helpful to look at the situation from several angles. For example, you mentioned that you wanted to ask the professor about recording his lectures. You might have thought, this professor is going to judge me, he will be angry, etc. When it came down to it, the professor did indeed give you the impression that you may have upset him but lets take a look at some of the possible things that might have been in play. As you put it, you had said something like nothing…. just if I am allowed. It might be the case that he only heard the first word and tuned out the rest. If he heard nothing he might have wondered why you had approached him. It is also possible that you werent very clear in how you were asking the question. As someone else mentioned, the professor might have been impatient, or perhaps the professor might be having some other troubles that we are not aware of. So essentially, it might not be the case that the expectations you have are true, but maybe there is a different explanation for what happened. Regardless of this, I dont think he should have screamed at you, and Im sorry that it happened.
With regards to you questioning your behavior, I will say that oftentimes our thoughts and fears about situations will make us behave in certain ways that we wish had gone differently and this is something you can work on. If youre interested, I think this self-help guide might be helpful. https://www.7cups.com/social-anxiety/
Lastly, thank you for sharing your story with us.
