Illustration: Pedro Nekoi
This column first appeared in an article by John Paul Brummer. Hora Papi Newsletter. You can subscribe on Substack.
Hey Papi!
I’m in my early 30s. Last year, I stopped drinking. It was so good I didn’t have to pick it up again. Lately, I’ve started trying to get out more and be more socially active. It’s working, but the problem is that I have a lot of social anxiety and social impostor syndrome. “You shouldn’t be here,” anxiety tells me. “These people take pity on you and talk about you when you leave.” Feeling safe becomes difficult and social anxiety worsens. I thought I had gotten over this problem when I first went to college, but it’s starting to happen again in my post-drinking world.
Another problem is meeting people that I feel a strong desire to connect with as friends.i haven’t this felt vulnerable after a long time! What if they don’t feel the same way? What if I want to get closer to them? What if they’re just humoring me and the kindness and connection I feel is built on civility? Why is it so embarrassing to have human emotions?
I know I need to be more compassionate towards myself, but it’s hard. You know you need confidence, but you don’t know where to start. I remember recently going out to a club wanting to dance, but the fear of being seen was so physically painful that all I could do was stand there.
So how do you get out of your head and into your body? How can I stop worrying? About how I’m perceived? how can i make friends Don’t insist too strongly, and be reasonable so as not to make people think you’re not interested? And how to do it all without the help of alcohol?
Signed,
con man
Hey, scammer!
I think many people, myself included, can relate to your letter. It’s incredibly embarrassing to be an adult with a Roth IRA and withdraw from social interactions thinking things like: Did they like me? Did I say something wrong? Are they talking about how weird I’ve been since I left? Am I the creature God hates most? Personally, I’m likely still doing this at 136 years old, even after my consciousness has been uploaded to the cloud, where I exist as a disembodied line of code that I just encountered. I wonder what other intangible lines of code decided to make something. Private server without me.
I use the term “impostor syndrome” many times to describe a set of anxieties that come with meeting new people or being exposed to difficult social interactions. It’s helpful to have a file where you can organize your unruly, chaotic emotions. But at the same time, I don’t think my problem is that I’m faking it. I know several people who have read Judith Butler. I can see that everyone is acting. In a sense, everyone is an actor and a fraud. I don’t know about you, but my problem is that performance is terrible. If anything, the problem is either I’m too cold and aloof, or I’m too eager to reveal my true self to someone I desperately want to know. At the end of the day, my “real self” seems like an 8th grader who just wants the cool kids to recognize him as worthy.
However, consider “Impostor Syndrome” as a summation of “fear of failure in social settings.” Whether you’re “me” or “someone else,” impostor syndrome is a self-imposed narrative, at least in my mind. It’s paranoia, and like all shades and flavors of paranoia, this one is rooted in delusion.
Now, when I say that, I don’t mean that no one In a group of strangers, they will criticize you, think unkind things about you, or even worse, ignore you completely. I don’t mean to surprise you, but the reality is that these possibilities are obvious. Its the life! It’s not a delusion to think you’re not someone’s cup of tea. If anything, it’s sharp. What is delusional is the idea that someone hating you is a bigger problem that should take precedence over everything else on your list of concerns. The delusion is that you have to be careful— a lot — That strangers approve of you, and if you don’t get that approval, it must mean there’s something fundamentally wrong with you, and you’re a pathetic person who will never be loved by anyone. It means that you are like a bug.no one is thinking about you that difficult.
But if impostor syndrome is delusional, why are we so obsessed with it? If it only holds us back, why do we choose to worry so much? Is not it? Of course, for one thing, anxiety is not a choice. However, in a sense, I think impostor syndrome is a faulty defense mechanism. For those of us who come from backgrounds where reading a room felt like a matter of life and death (e.g., gay people living in rural Oklahoma), we can examine our surroundings and figure out our best position within it. You may have developed a reflexive instinct to calculate. : Do I belong here? Are these people your friends or your enemies? Is this place safer out of sight? Some of us have learned the hard way to always be on guard and flee at the first sign of danger.
Impostor syndrome can also pre-empt criticism. Sometimes we are cruel to ourselves just to beat the hell out of others. I thought as I entered the room, Remember, you are a fundamentally flawed human being, so try not to show it. It may sound insane on paper, but in reality it can feel like you’re getting ahead of something, like you’re protecting yourself from being blindsided by rejection or unpleasant information.
Perhaps you already understood this, but this idea makes perfect sense for those who already do not like themselves very much for some reason. Getting back to my story, my favorite and least favorite person on the planet, meeting new people is a great way to get rid of all the unpleasant things you doubt about yourself: that you’re not attractive. It seems like it’s a desperate way to disprove that no, we don’t know what to do. Getting closer to people, not registering as someone people want to know more about, not letting me shine, not shining. Social situations with strangers provide a kind of testing ground for these uncomfortable hypotheses. Will I be proven right or God willing I will be proven wrong?
With all this anxiety, it’s no wonder so many people turn to alcohol and drugs to escape their own thoughts. So what do we do without them?
Well, what has been helpful for me is reminding myself that yes, impostor syndrome is indeed a story and I am a writer. You can remake the story. When I feel these familiar fears suddenly appear when meeting someone new, I say to myself: these are fiction. Whenever I can, I try to forget about the ridiculously high stakes I tend to place on interacting with new people and instead focus on them. who are they? What are they all about? what do they like?
I try to remind myself how wonderful it is to simply have contact with another human being, whether that person is my new best friend, a new acquaintance, or someone I just talk to for a little while. I don’t want to have fear in my interactions. I would like to teach with curiosity and genuine interest. I believe it’s the best I can do, and doing my best is all I can do. If they’re criticizing me, if they’re firing me, if they’re thinking, I’ll never talk to this person again, it doesn’t matter to me. My best foot is in the front. Some people meet there, some people don’t. That’s what it is.
For cheaters, it may be helpful to work on your relationship with yourself as a way to know how to approach relationships with others (including new people). I recommend meditation as a way to practice paying attention to specific thoughts. Fear does arise, but the fact that fear exists does not mean it has to be feared. Being aware of your anxious feelings is the first step to being able to cope with them. For me, when I find myself thinking an unkind or paranoid thought, I rephrase it in my head in a silly voice, crumple it up as if it were written on paper, and before throwing it aside. I like to spit it out as a way to acknowledge its existence. .
I don’t pretend that this is easy or that relapses don’t happen. There are still nights when I go home thinking this. God, that was a messor, This is why I should stay homeor, Why can’t you just be normal? Or, even worse, I wish it was someone else. But for me, and for all of us, it’s important to know that it’s possible to make real connections with other people, and that good things often exist just outside of our comfort zones, and that ultimately I also know that I’m okay. I just remind myself sometimes, you are safeis enough to release tension and relax.
Con artist, unless you count “Eataly in Soho at 2:15 a.m. last week,” you’re rarely in a room where you don’t belong. That’s not what I want. Please tell me about your current situation. The problem, perhaps going back to my oversimplification or a complete misreading of Judy B., is that everyone is performing. We are all clowns here. Have fun at the circus.
con mucho amor,
Papi
First edition issued April 11, 2024.
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