Vanessa Van Edwards says awkwardness hides behind many masks: judgment, meanness, name-dropping, showing off, bullying. The fix isn't to stop being awkward. It's to become an easy laugher who asks questions and lets others shine, which drops the pressure to perform.
If you're super self-conscious, and that's where awkwardness comes from, awkwardness can dress up as other things. We tend to stereotypically think that awkwardness is like, you know, this shrinking, very quiet, hi, I do, bumbling. That's not awkwardness. That's not how I was awkward. Awkwardness can also dress up as judgment, as meanness, as dream-killing, as drama, as name-dropping, as showing off, as intimidating, as bullying. That's all awkwardness. It's just dressing up in different ways. So we have to recognize that if someone is doing any of those things, name-dropping, they probably feel awkward, which comes from a sort of self-consciousness. So if I want you to go into a situation to be at home with yourself, but you can't get there, what happens? You stop going out. I'll often say to my students, stop trying to be impressive, stop trying to be funny, stop trying to tell great stories. Just let other people impress you. What questions could you ask to let them impress you? Could you be an easy laugher? And a lot of people like an easy laugher. And what happens to awkward folks is they're so in their head, they forget to laugh at the joke. And that is one of the hardest things. If someone else is like, oh my gosh, I made such a good joke, and the other person was like, uh-huh, and they're like thinking about their next question. Yeah. I'm like, don't even think about the story. Don't try to be impressive. Just be an easy laugher. Offer and let them entertain you. Let them impress you. That takes the pressure. You don't have to be at home with yourself to be entertained. And that— it's a back door into feeling like yourself because at least you put it all outward.
