January 16, 2019 • 25 mins
Alison talks with awkwardness expert Melissa Dahl about the things that make us cringe.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
My colleagues. We'll stop commenting on everything I get my
assistantes at people and meeting? Why does my coworker keep
taking credit for all my idea? Have any wisdom for me?
Hi'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Aska Manager podcast, where
I answer questions from listeners about life at work. Everything
from what to say if you're allergic to your coworkers
perfume to what to do if you drink too much
(00:23):
at the company party. Let's get started. I have to
confess I really love awkwardness. That might sound like a
weird thing to say, but I find awkward situations, including
my own, really funny and entertaining and in some way
kind of heartwarming. My favorite letters at the Aska Manager
(00:44):
website are the ones that involve awkwardness, like I once
published a letter from a woman who had accidentally hugged
her CEO on the elevator one morning. He was leaning
past her to hold the door open, and she thought
he was going in for a hug, so she just
went with it and embraced him. There was another letter
from a person who found out that her mom had
been emailing her boss to remind him that the daughter's
(01:07):
birthday was coming up soon. I love those stories, and really,
so much of Aska Manager is about here's this uncomfortable,
potentially awkward situation. How do I handle it? And that
is probably what has kept me happily doing the column
for what eleven years at this point. Awkward situations are
just really interesting and entertaining, and they're so universal. We
(01:29):
all do things that make us cringe. Even the most
confident among us have those moments that still make our
faces turn red when we think about them weeks later.
It happens to everyone, and it definitely happens at work. Today,
we have a special guest here to talk about awkwardness.
Melissa Doll is the author of the amazing book cringe Worthy,
A Theory of Awkwardness, and I think she loves awkwardness
(01:52):
as much as I do. Melissa, Welcome to the show. Hi, Hi,
Thanks Alison, Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to
have you here. You and I have talked about awkwardness before,
and I just absolutely love cringe Worthy. Can we talk
a bit about the book itself and then we'll just
talk all things awkward? Yeah that sounds great. Yeah, what
do you want to know? Well? I mean this is
(02:13):
basically the greatest idea for a book ever for people
who don't know it. Will you just describe it and
what made you want to write it? Yeah, so I
talk about awkward Actually, I feel like I don't know
if you are this way with your book. But sometimes,
like when people ask me to describe my book, it's
like it's like all words lead me and I'm like, um, um,
(02:35):
I don't remember, but but I will do my best. Um.
So it is. I am a writer for New York
magazine for The Cut, and I cover psychology primarily um
for The Cut, And I've written about psychology for the
last more than ten years. And one of the things
I've always really liked about the job is, you know,
I'll have some kind of question about human nature why
(02:57):
do we do the things we do? And I get
to you, you know, call up somebody who has been
studying this for you know, for the last decade of
their life or so, and who can explain it to
me in a thoughtful way. But I kind of couldn't
find anything that explained the feeling of of cringing, the
feeling of awkwardness, you know, that that like just that
tension that kind of like permeates the room when someone's
(03:19):
like makes a joke and it doesn't go over well,
or the thing where someone assumes someone else's expecting and
they're not. You know, I was just curious what could
explain the psychology behind that feeling. So this book is
kind of my attempt to do that. And let's actually
define awkwardness. How do you define it? I define it
(03:42):
as it's so it's embarrassment. It's it's like the self
conscious aspect of embarrassment. But I think what's different about
it and what sets it apart? Because it is it
is different, Like an awkward situation is not necessarily an
embarrassing situation. So I think it's the conscious aspect of embarrassment,
but with this stronger undercurrent of uncertainty, you know, like
(04:06):
there's this element of what do I say next? What
do I do next? Like the social norms are not
here to guide me. So that's how I defined it
for the book. You came up with an overall theory
of awkwardness, which you have called cringe theory. Will you
talk about what cringe theory is? Yeah? So I really
have come to believe that cringing kind of causes us
(04:30):
to to ask some pretty surprisingly profound questions about ourselves.
If you if you kind of pay attention to it,
I think it kind of makes us ask ourselves, who
are you? How how do other people perceive you? And
and who do you want to be? I think that
cringing are it's the moments that make us cringe. Are
(04:50):
these moments when we realize that the you that you
kind of carry in your own head, this perception of yourself,
is maybe not necessarily the way the world is seeing.
It's kind of the moment we realize there's a disconnect
between the person you're trying to present to the world
and what you actually look like to the people around you.
So the idea is awkwardness is what happens when this
(05:12):
polished version of ourselves that we hope we're showing to
the world slips and we're exposed, and we worry that
people are seeing maybe who we really are, but the
parts that we prefer to hide. Yeah, exactly, exactly, So
it's kind of like, yeah, I'll just leave it there, exactly.
You talk in the book about the spotlight effect that
(05:33):
we assume that other people are paying more attention to
us than they really are. This is I would imagine,
probably at its peak when we're teenagers, but it stays
with us, right it does. Yeah, I mean actually interestingly,
they do say that self consciousness kind of fades later
in adulthood, but certainly it's more of a human nature thing,
it's not just a teenage thing. Uh. The spotlight effect
(05:55):
is this idea that we think more people are paying
attention to us than actually are. And there's this classic
experiment where they tested this. They had somebody show up
to an experiment late. They kind of told them the
wrong time on purpose, and before they went in the room,
they they gave him this really silly T shirt with
Barry Manilow's face on it. And so the person is
(06:17):
already late and they show up and they're wearing this
really silly T shirt. It's kind of this embarrassing moment.
And then afterwards the experimenters interviewed, uh, all these folks
and they one of the things they asked them was
how many people do you think remembered your shirt? And
basically they thought, you know, maybe they thought ten people
would remember, um, but really only five people remembered. So
(06:39):
the kind of the moral of it is, it's interesting
a lot of times when people write and talk about
the spotlight effect, it's like the message that gets across
is like, oh, no one's paying attention to you, you know,
do whatever you want. It's it's not quite that. It's
it's just not as many people as we think are
are paying attention to our ridiculous mistakes. Yeah, I feel
like I see that and a lot of letters at
(07:01):
asking Manager that people are just really seized with worry
that everyone saw this relatively small, silly thing that they did.
That You're right, the message can't be or don't worry
no one is ever paying attention because certainly quite often
people are. We just really overestimate I think how often
that's the case we do. It's just kind of you know,
(07:22):
humans are kind of egocentric by nature, and all of
us have have that tendency to one degree or another.
But it's interesting, it's so interesting to me the kind
of like link between awkwardness and kind of feeling uncomfortable
in social situations and egocentrism, because it's like it's it's like,
you're worried what people think about you, but you know,
(07:44):
of course no one is thinking about you as much
as as much as you are, so, and I think
that's particularly can be true at work. Like you think,
oh my gosh, I made such an idiot out of
myself in that meeting. But no one's remembering what you said.
They're remembering what what they said and whether it went
well or not. So yes, unless it was really egregious,
I think that's usually the case. Yeah, right, Yeah, you
(08:05):
can't just make a blakant statement and say no one
ever remembers. But yeah, but people definitely think it's happening
more than it is. Let's take a quick break here,
and when we come back, we're going to hear about
some real life awkward situations that Melissa put herself into
when she was writing the book, including a visit she
paid to a professional cuddler. One thing that is great
(08:35):
about the book is that not only do you really
delve into the science of awkwardness, but you also intentionally
went out and put yourself in really awkward situations so
that you could write about them. You did improv so
that you could write about it for the book, which
just makes you my hero. And you even set up
a session with a professional cuddler so that you could
(08:56):
write about it. I was laughing out loud when I
read that part of the book will you tell Us
about the Professional Cuddler? Because I just cringe thinking about it.
Oh my gosh. So that that part of the book
I had. I was almost done. I was almost done
writing the book, and I had like, as you say,
I had put myself into all these weird situations, and
it kind of did that just as an aside. That
(09:17):
was a later injection into the book. That's kind of
something people ask about a lot, like, oh, like, you know,
you did all these things, But the first draft of
the book wasn't like that at all. The first draft
was more, um sharing other people's stories. And I kind
of like pulled it all together and looked at what
I had and I was like, oh, this just feels
kind of cruel to like be writing about like this
(09:40):
uncomfortable feeling from a distance, you know, like just to
tell other people's embarrassing stories. It's just it's sort of
weirdly didn't feel fair. And also it didn't feel as
emotional reading it. Um, I think like having some distance
between that that discomfort. So I decided to dive right in.
But anyway, yeah, that the cuddler part came. I realized,
(10:06):
like the reason I wrote the book was, you know,
in part because this feeling has driven me nuts for
most of my life. You know, I just feel like
I'm I'm often I'm just really sensitive to moments of awkwardness.
But by the end of writing this book, and you know,
taking improv classes and doing all these crazy things, it's
like I just didn't feel it anymore. Like I would
I would just do things that people would be kind
(10:29):
of amazed at. You know, you talk a lot about
having uncomfortable conversations like work or or the kind of
wisdom of being direct at work, and that was something
I was always afraid of doing. But by the end
of writing this book, I just kind of would dive
right in. Sorry, I'm kind of I'm kind of digressing
away from the cuddler. But basically that was sort of
(10:49):
trying to get the feeling back in a way to
be like, you know, like, uh, what will work, Like
will anything make me feel awkward again? And that was
the thing that broke me. It was so weird. Oh
my god, it was just like, oh my god, it
was so weird. And now I'm embarrassed that, like I
wrote about it, in a book, it's like, oh my god,
what was It was the greatest moment in the book.
(11:11):
I loved it. So for people listening who are like,
what on earth as a professional cuddler? What on earth
is a professional cuddler? Well, so basically I think that
they say, you know, they are all about the power
of touch as kind of a you know, soothing, you know,
healing mechanism thing. So people go to them who are
(11:33):
maybe like feeling lonely or I don't know who, who
have maybe gone through a breakup or something like that.
It's just kind of like like the using the power
of human touch is kind of what they what they say.
But I came across some story where some journalists had
had done it, and you know, she talked a lot
about how awkward it was. I was like, oh, great,
(11:53):
that's great for my purposes, um, but yeah, it was
just it was just seriously weird. Like I just I
just like froze up and just like couldn't I couldn't
even go through with it. I had to like run
out of there. I was too uncomfortable. So that's my
favorite part is that you literally ran out and you
did it before any cuddling had happened, right, No, we
(12:14):
should she did not. We did not even touch each other.
I was just like, I'm sorry, I have to go
after it's too weird. So how is this supposed to work?
You go and is it like an office or is
it their home? Well, I think it's like their home
or um or they can come to you, and I
guess it's supposed to just be you kind of just
like hugged for a while or something. I don't know
(12:37):
because I only lasted like ten minutes before I had
to get out of there because I thought it was
too uncomfortable. But I don't want to like dismiss I
think that it can be an important thing for, you know,
for people who are lonely or something. So I don't
want to dismiss the profession of professional cuddling. But it
wasn't for me for you, that makes sense. I want
(12:58):
to go back to something you or saying before that
as you started to do these things, you became sort
of immune to feeling awkwardness. Has that worn off or
are you still there? It's funny, it's like it wears
off when when I'm not thinking. It's like the power
of the book. It like when I'm immersed in it,
(13:20):
and when I'm doing lots of interviews for the book,
and when I'm thinking a lot about kind of what
I truly believe to be like the magic of awkwardness,
which is kind of like uncomfortable self awareness, but that
can be really useful when I'm immersed in that, when
I'm thinking a lot about it, I'm not afraid of
it anymore. Um. But there was a period where i
wasn't doing a lot of press for the book, and
it's like the feeling like came right back, and and
(13:42):
so I think it's like it like works temporarily. So um.
So anyone listening to this probably should read my book
again and again, um to give the effect that makes
sense definitely. Um. It almost seems like if you have
steeped yourself in the messages of the book, which are
this is so normal everyone experiences that, there's actually something
(14:04):
really useful and healthy about it. Like when you're really
steeped in that message, that is going to really raise
your immunity to feeling awkward. But yeah, I could see
how when that's not right in the forefront of your mind,
it would come right back. Yeah, because it's a I mean,
it's unpleasant, you know, it's tense, it's not fun um.
But when yeah, when I'm remembering the message of the book,
(14:25):
which is kind of just that these moments can the
moments that make you cringe can kind of show you
who you are and who you're who you expect yourself
to be. And then I get some use out of
the feeling. So we're gonna do one final break care
and come right back, and we're back. You know. As
(14:51):
funny as I find awkward situations, especially the ones that
you put yourself into in the book, I think the
book's overarching theme is a really beautiful one. And I
want to read a short paragraph from the introduction that
I think sums up the whole message of the book.
You can tell me if you dispute that after after
so here it is, Melissa wrote, the things that make
(15:13):
you cringe are usually the things worth sharing because they
can help others feel less alone. It's an understandable reaction
to flee the situation that makes you cringe, But what
if you could teach yourself to tolerate it. You could
maybe learn to use the empathy as a portal to
compassion for other people, and for yourself. Looked at in
(15:34):
a certain light, cringing becomes a worthwhile feeling in emotion,
worth exploring, not avoiding. Little humiliations can bring people together
if we let them. The ridiculous in me honors the
ridiculous in you. I love that. I love that way
of looking at it, and I think it's part of
why I love awkwardness, because it's not about making fun
(15:55):
of anyone. It's about seeing our common humanity. Yeah. I agree.
I wasn't expecting to get this kind of common humanity
vibe out of something as as silly as awkwardness, but
I truly, truly did. Um. It's just like it's something
we all experience. It's something that can bring us together
if if you, if you look at it in the
(16:15):
right light. So now you have a whole chapter in
the book about awkwardness at work, which of course I loved.
And you opened that chapter by talking about an Ask
a Manager letter where someone had been working from home
because of a snowstorm and they're on a conference call
with their coworkers and suddenly their roommate, who was also
(16:36):
at home due to the weather, started having sex with
his girlfriend. In the next room loud sex and the
people on the work conference call could hear it. And
then after my letter writer got back to the office,
some coworkers were even avoiding them because they figured that
they had been openly watching porn on the call and
felt really uncomfortable. It doesn't get much more awkward than that.
(16:59):
So I love that you opened the work chapter with that. Yeah,
I mean, I think, especially there's so much awkwardness in
remote working situations. Um. Yeah, that that letter was so good.
It was so bad because it was like, what were
you supposed to tell that person? The letter writer like,
it's like if you usually the answer is to be direct,
(17:21):
but in this situation, like, would that have made it worse? Maybe? Right? Yeah,
because you have to be direct and sort of introduced
sex into the conversation, which were so trained to not
most of us are trained to not do at work. Yeah.
My advice to the person ultimately was, I think, yeah,
if if they were assuming that you were watching porn,
it's better to to speak up and correct that than
(17:43):
to let them go on thinking that. And actually the
person set in an update later took the advice, did
tell people what was going on, and everyone had a
good laugh about it, admitted that yes, indeed, they had
thought the person was watching porn openly on a work
conference call. I felt much better once they knew it
was really going on, and then it just turned into
an office joke. Yeah, that was such a good one.
(18:04):
But it's so funny how many of people who write
into Ask a Manager are are dealing with some kind
of like fear of awkwardness, some kind of like it's
such a running theme, and I think that's why I
love your side so much. That's why I love doing it.
I think work is especially prone to awkwardness in some ways.
And part of it goes back to what you're saying
(18:26):
about awkwardness being what happens when the face that you
want to show to the world slips. Because work is
generally a place where we're really trying to have a
professional persona on, so there's a lot of room for
it to slip, Like there's further to fall then there
might be in a non work situation, if that makes sense, right.
And it's like there are rules, like there are rules
(18:49):
that govern how you behave but there's not, but in
some situations there aren't, and so there are these gray areas.
But then it's a place that like, yeah, I think
I think the workplace is particularly prone to awkwardness. And
I think you're right. There's all these unwritten rules about
how to conduct yourself, and it's people don't always know
(19:12):
exactly what they are or exactly what the nuance of
those rules are, and it's so easy to run a
foul of them if you even know what they are
in the first place, which not everyone does. And you're
thrown together with people you might not be the most
comfortable social fit with, which is another element I think
that ups the chances of awkward encounters. I don't know.
(19:34):
Work is really awkward in so many different ways. Yeah,
it's a it's a weird place. And it does really
matter in this situation what people think of you and
what people's opinion of you is. So it's like you
can tell yourself in other situations like, oh, like it
doesn't it doesn't matter what what are the people think
of me? But it does matter at work and a
(19:54):
lot of situations. So yeah, this mistakes are really high. Yeah,
you can't just decide oh well, maybe my co workers
did think I was openly listening to watching or watching
porn on the conference call, so be it. I mean
that you have to address it. But then how no
one teaches you how to address something like that. What
do you think, like, because it's one thing to just say,
you know, just just have the awkward conversation. But do
(20:16):
you do you think that like there are ways people
can learn how to get better at it, or can
can learn how to address uncomfortable things, or do you
think it's just a matter of just doing it. This
is just the perfect setup for me to pitch my book,
which is all about how to have uncomfortable conversations at work.
But I think a lot of it is finding a
(20:39):
way to be really matter of fact, like one of
the things that feels so uncomfortable. But the prospect of
these conversations is they feel so emotionally fraught. And the
more you can talk about it, whatever it is, in
a very matter of fact way, using the same tone
that you would use to say, hey, I can't get
this printer cartridge to work, the closer you can get
(21:02):
to that, probably the less awkward it's going to be.
Not always, I mean, some things are just going to
be awkward and there's no way around that. And all
you can do is just plunge in and get through it.
But a lot you can minimize a lot of awkwardness,
I think by being a matter of fact, and people
will take their cues from you. If you approach a
conversation and you seem really tense and really worried, you know,
(21:25):
you've been up for two nights dreading this conversation, and
it shows people are going to feel really awkward because
you're signaling to them that this is worthy of a
lot of stress intention But if you're pretty calm about it,
it will usually go better. Not always, um, But I
also think there's real value I think in accepting you
(21:46):
know what, Sometimes it's just going to be awkward, and
that's not a reason to not have the conversation. That's
a reason to maybe feel weird about it and to
feel you might feel a little anxious about it, but
it's not a reason to not do it. And I
think so often and people interpret that feeling as awkwardness
as being a flag that they shouldn't even be in
that conversation. And sometimes that's true, but not always. Yeah,
(22:09):
just to me, it's it's a signal that this is
something we probably need need to pay more attention to,
not less attention. Too often, not always been, but often yes, Yeah,
I mean times when I think that wouldn't be true
would be like if you were overstepping your boundaries and
having an awkward conversation with someone about like their reproductive
plans and another doctor. But but in a lot of cases,
(22:31):
I think you're right. The fact that you are having
these emotions about it means there's something there that you've
got to dig into and sort out exactly exactly, And
it's kind of it's kind of like a it's like
a painful self consciousness or self awareness. I think the
feeling of awkwardness is. But it's it's yeah to me,
I really, I really think it's so important to you
(22:52):
have to dig into it and listen to it and
what is it trying to tell? You? Yeah. I always
feel like one of the best things that people can
do for their quality of life at work but also
just in life in general, is to just make a
conscious decision to embrace the awkward. Because we all have
horribly awkward moments that we then cringe over later on,
(23:12):
and I don't think that's going to stop. But there
is real joy and real liberation and just embracing how
awkward we all are and and finding it funny. And
I it can be hard to do that, but I
think when you find your way there, it's such a relief. Yeah,
that's that's another thing I read about in the book.
I really believe that too, Like if you can kind
(23:32):
of I mean, I feel like I'm a lesson I'm
having to learn over and over again in life, is
to just lighten up and nothing take things so seriously,
including myself. But um, but that really is part of
the key to dealing with self consciousness and awkward moments
is just to somehow lighten up and try to try
(23:53):
to just like take some joy in just the absurdity
of being human. Yeah, that was something I kind of
ended up learning through writing the book for sure. I
love that. Well, that is the show. Thank you for
coming on and talking with us. Yeah, thank you so
much for having me. Melissa's book is called Cringe Worthy,
(24:13):
A Theory of Awkwardness, and you can order it on
Amazon or wherever books are sold, and you can read
more of her work at New York Magazine, where she
writes the Science of Us column. For The Cut, it
was such a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much,
Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the
Ask a Manager Podcast. If you'd like to come on
the show to talk through your own question, email it
(24:34):
to podcast at Asking manager dot org, or you can
leave a recording of your question by calling eight five
five six work. That's eight five ft six nine seven five.
You can get more ask a Manager at ask a
Manager dot org or in my book Ask a Manager
How to Navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and the
rest of your life at work. The Ask a Manager
Show is a partnership with how Stuff Works and is
(24:56):
produced by Paul Deckett. If you liked what you heard,
please take a minute to subscribe and review the show
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play. I'm Alison Green
and I'll be back next week with another one of
your questions. M
My colleagues. We'll stop commenting on everything I get my
assistantes at people and meeting? Why does my coworker keep
taking credit for all my idea? Have any wisdom for me?
Hi'm Alison Green. Welcome to the Aska Manager podcast, where
I answer questions from listeners about life at work. Everything
from what to say if you're allergic to your coworkers
perfume to what to do if you drink too much
(00:23):
at the company party. Let's get started. I have to
confess I really love awkwardness. That might sound like a
weird thing to say, but I find awkward situations, including
my own, really funny and entertaining and in some way
kind of heartwarming. My favorite letters at the Aska Manager
(00:44):
website are the ones that involve awkwardness, like I once
published a letter from a woman who had accidentally hugged
her CEO on the elevator one morning. He was leaning
past her to hold the door open, and she thought
he was going in for a hug, so she just
went with it and embraced him. There was another letter
from a person who found out that her mom had
been emailing her boss to remind him that the daughter's
(01:07):
birthday was coming up soon. I love those stories, and really,
so much of Aska Manager is about here's this uncomfortable,
potentially awkward situation. How do I handle it? And that
is probably what has kept me happily doing the column
for what eleven years at this point. Awkward situations are
just really interesting and entertaining, and they're so universal. We
(01:29):
all do things that make us cringe. Even the most
confident among us have those moments that still make our
faces turn red when we think about them weeks later.
It happens to everyone, and it definitely happens at work. Today,
we have a special guest here to talk about awkwardness.
Melissa Doll is the author of the amazing book cringe Worthy,
A Theory of Awkwardness, and I think she loves awkwardness
(01:52):
as much as I do. Melissa, Welcome to the show. Hi, Hi,
Thanks Alison, Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to
have you here. You and I have talked about awkwardness before,
and I just absolutely love cringe Worthy. Can we talk
a bit about the book itself and then we'll just
talk all things awkward? Yeah that sounds great. Yeah, what
do you want to know? Well? I mean this is
(02:13):
basically the greatest idea for a book ever for people
who don't know it. Will you just describe it and
what made you want to write it? Yeah, so I
talk about awkward Actually, I feel like I don't know
if you are this way with your book. But sometimes,
like when people ask me to describe my book, it's
like it's like all words lead me and I'm like, um, um,
(02:35):
I don't remember, but but I will do my best. Um.
So it is. I am a writer for New York
magazine for The Cut, and I cover psychology primarily um
for The Cut, And I've written about psychology for the
last more than ten years. And one of the things
I've always really liked about the job is, you know,
I'll have some kind of question about human nature why
(02:57):
do we do the things we do? And I get
to you, you know, call up somebody who has been
studying this for you know, for the last decade of
their life or so, and who can explain it to
me in a thoughtful way. But I kind of couldn't
find anything that explained the feeling of of cringing, the
feeling of awkwardness, you know, that that like just that
tension that kind of like permeates the room when someone's
(03:19):
like makes a joke and it doesn't go over well,
or the thing where someone assumes someone else's expecting and
they're not. You know, I was just curious what could
explain the psychology behind that feeling. So this book is
kind of my attempt to do that. And let's actually
define awkwardness. How do you define it? I define it
(03:42):
as it's so it's embarrassment. It's it's like the self
conscious aspect of embarrassment. But I think what's different about
it and what sets it apart? Because it is it
is different, Like an awkward situation is not necessarily an
embarrassing situation. So I think it's the conscious aspect of embarrassment,
but with this stronger undercurrent of uncertainty, you know, like
(04:06):
there's this element of what do I say next? What
do I do next? Like the social norms are not
here to guide me. So that's how I defined it
for the book. You came up with an overall theory
of awkwardness, which you have called cringe theory. Will you
talk about what cringe theory is? Yeah? So I really
have come to believe that cringing kind of causes us
(04:30):
to to ask some pretty surprisingly profound questions about ourselves.
If you if you kind of pay attention to it,
I think it kind of makes us ask ourselves, who
are you? How how do other people perceive you? And
and who do you want to be? I think that
cringing are it's the moments that make us cringe. Are
(04:50):
these moments when we realize that the you that you
kind of carry in your own head, this perception of yourself,
is maybe not necessarily the way the world is seeing.
It's kind of the moment we realize there's a disconnect
between the person you're trying to present to the world
and what you actually look like to the people around you.
So the idea is awkwardness is what happens when this
(05:12):
polished version of ourselves that we hope we're showing to
the world slips and we're exposed, and we worry that
people are seeing maybe who we really are, but the
parts that we prefer to hide. Yeah, exactly, exactly, So
it's kind of like, yeah, I'll just leave it there, exactly.
You talk in the book about the spotlight effect that
(05:33):
we assume that other people are paying more attention to
us than they really are. This is I would imagine,
probably at its peak when we're teenagers, but it stays
with us, right it does. Yeah, I mean actually interestingly,
they do say that self consciousness kind of fades later
in adulthood, but certainly it's more of a human nature thing,
it's not just a teenage thing. Uh. The spotlight effect
(05:55):
is this idea that we think more people are paying
attention to us than actually are. And there's this classic
experiment where they tested this. They had somebody show up
to an experiment late. They kind of told them the
wrong time on purpose, and before they went in the room,
they they gave him this really silly T shirt with
Barry Manilow's face on it. And so the person is
(06:17):
already late and they show up and they're wearing this
really silly T shirt. It's kind of this embarrassing moment.
And then afterwards the experimenters interviewed, uh, all these folks
and they one of the things they asked them was
how many people do you think remembered your shirt? And
basically they thought, you know, maybe they thought ten people
would remember, um, but really only five people remembered. So
(06:39):
the kind of the moral of it is, it's interesting
a lot of times when people write and talk about
the spotlight effect, it's like the message that gets across
is like, oh, no one's paying attention to you, you know,
do whatever you want. It's it's not quite that. It's
it's just not as many people as we think are
are paying attention to our ridiculous mistakes. Yeah, I feel
like I see that and a lot of letters at
(07:01):
asking Manager that people are just really seized with worry
that everyone saw this relatively small, silly thing that they did.
That You're right, the message can't be or don't worry
no one is ever paying attention because certainly quite often
people are. We just really overestimate I think how often
that's the case we do. It's just kind of you know,
(07:22):
humans are kind of egocentric by nature, and all of
us have have that tendency to one degree or another.
But it's interesting, it's so interesting to me the kind
of like link between awkwardness and kind of feeling uncomfortable
in social situations and egocentrism, because it's like it's it's like,
you're worried what people think about you, but you know,
(07:44):
of course no one is thinking about you as much
as as much as you are, so, and I think
that's particularly can be true at work. Like you think,
oh my gosh, I made such an idiot out of
myself in that meeting. But no one's remembering what you said.
They're remembering what what they said and whether it went
well or not. So yes, unless it was really egregious,
I think that's usually the case. Yeah, right, Yeah, you
(08:05):
can't just make a blakant statement and say no one
ever remembers. But yeah, but people definitely think it's happening
more than it is. Let's take a quick break here,
and when we come back, we're going to hear about
some real life awkward situations that Melissa put herself into
when she was writing the book, including a visit she
paid to a professional cuddler. One thing that is great
(08:35):
about the book is that not only do you really
delve into the science of awkwardness, but you also intentionally
went out and put yourself in really awkward situations so
that you could write about them. You did improv so
that you could write about it for the book, which
just makes you my hero. And you even set up
a session with a professional cuddler so that you could
(08:56):
write about it. I was laughing out loud when I
read that part of the book will you tell Us
about the Professional Cuddler? Because I just cringe thinking about it.
Oh my gosh. So that that part of the book
I had. I was almost done. I was almost done
writing the book, and I had like, as you say,
I had put myself into all these weird situations, and
it kind of did that just as an aside. That
(09:17):
was a later injection into the book. That's kind of
something people ask about a lot, like, oh, like, you know,
you did all these things, But the first draft of
the book wasn't like that at all. The first draft
was more, um sharing other people's stories. And I kind
of like pulled it all together and looked at what
I had and I was like, oh, this just feels
kind of cruel to like be writing about like this
(09:40):
uncomfortable feeling from a distance, you know, like just to
tell other people's embarrassing stories. It's just it's sort of
weirdly didn't feel fair. And also it didn't feel as
emotional reading it. Um, I think like having some distance
between that that discomfort. So I decided to dive right in.
But anyway, yeah, that the cuddler part came. I realized,
(10:06):
like the reason I wrote the book was, you know,
in part because this feeling has driven me nuts for
most of my life. You know, I just feel like
I'm I'm often I'm just really sensitive to moments of awkwardness.
But by the end of writing this book, and you know,
taking improv classes and doing all these crazy things, it's
like I just didn't feel it anymore. Like I would
I would just do things that people would be kind
(10:29):
of amazed at. You know, you talk a lot about
having uncomfortable conversations like work or or the kind of
wisdom of being direct at work, and that was something
I was always afraid of doing. But by the end
of writing this book, I just kind of would dive
right in. Sorry, I'm kind of I'm kind of digressing
away from the cuddler. But basically that was sort of
(10:49):
trying to get the feeling back in a way to
be like, you know, like, uh, what will work, Like
will anything make me feel awkward again? And that was
the thing that broke me. It was so weird. Oh
my god, it was just like, oh my god, it
was so weird. And now I'm embarrassed that, like I
wrote about it, in a book, it's like, oh my god,
what was It was the greatest moment in the book.
(11:11):
I loved it. So for people listening who are like,
what on earth as a professional cuddler? What on earth
is a professional cuddler? Well, so basically I think that
they say, you know, they are all about the power
of touch as kind of a you know, soothing, you know,
healing mechanism thing. So people go to them who are
(11:33):
maybe like feeling lonely or I don't know who, who
have maybe gone through a breakup or something like that.
It's just kind of like like the using the power
of human touch is kind of what they what they say.
But I came across some story where some journalists had
had done it, and you know, she talked a lot
about how awkward it was. I was like, oh, great,
(11:53):
that's great for my purposes, um, but yeah, it was
just it was just seriously weird. Like I just I
just like froze up and just like couldn't I couldn't
even go through with it. I had to like run
out of there. I was too uncomfortable. So that's my
favorite part is that you literally ran out and you
did it before any cuddling had happened, right, No, we
(12:14):
should she did not. We did not even touch each other.
I was just like, I'm sorry, I have to go
after it's too weird. So how is this supposed to work?
You go and is it like an office or is
it their home? Well, I think it's like their home
or um or they can come to you, and I
guess it's supposed to just be you kind of just
like hugged for a while or something. I don't know
(12:37):
because I only lasted like ten minutes before I had
to get out of there because I thought it was
too uncomfortable. But I don't want to like dismiss I
think that it can be an important thing for, you know,
for people who are lonely or something. So I don't
want to dismiss the profession of professional cuddling. But it
wasn't for me for you, that makes sense. I want
(12:58):
to go back to something you or saying before that
as you started to do these things, you became sort
of immune to feeling awkwardness. Has that worn off or
are you still there? It's funny, it's like it wears
off when when I'm not thinking. It's like the power
of the book. It like when I'm immersed in it,
(13:20):
and when I'm doing lots of interviews for the book,
and when I'm thinking a lot about kind of what
I truly believe to be like the magic of awkwardness,
which is kind of like uncomfortable self awareness, but that
can be really useful when I'm immersed in that, when
I'm thinking a lot about it, I'm not afraid of
it anymore. Um. But there was a period where i
wasn't doing a lot of press for the book, and
it's like the feeling like came right back, and and
(13:42):
so I think it's like it like works temporarily. So um.
So anyone listening to this probably should read my book
again and again, um to give the effect that makes
sense definitely. Um. It almost seems like if you have
steeped yourself in the messages of the book, which are
this is so normal everyone experiences that, there's actually something
(14:04):
really useful and healthy about it. Like when you're really
steeped in that message, that is going to really raise
your immunity to feeling awkward. But yeah, I could see
how when that's not right in the forefront of your mind,
it would come right back. Yeah, because it's a I mean,
it's unpleasant, you know, it's tense, it's not fun um.
But when yeah, when I'm remembering the message of the book,
(14:25):
which is kind of just that these moments can the
moments that make you cringe can kind of show you
who you are and who you're who you expect yourself
to be. And then I get some use out of
the feeling. So we're gonna do one final break care
and come right back, and we're back. You know. As
(14:51):
funny as I find awkward situations, especially the ones that
you put yourself into in the book, I think the
book's overarching theme is a really beautiful one. And I
want to read a short paragraph from the introduction that
I think sums up the whole message of the book.
You can tell me if you dispute that after after
so here it is, Melissa wrote, the things that make
(15:13):
you cringe are usually the things worth sharing because they
can help others feel less alone. It's an understandable reaction
to flee the situation that makes you cringe, But what
if you could teach yourself to tolerate it. You could
maybe learn to use the empathy as a portal to
compassion for other people, and for yourself. Looked at in
(15:34):
a certain light, cringing becomes a worthwhile feeling in emotion,
worth exploring, not avoiding. Little humiliations can bring people together
if we let them. The ridiculous in me honors the
ridiculous in you. I love that. I love that way
of looking at it, and I think it's part of
why I love awkwardness, because it's not about making fun
(15:55):
of anyone. It's about seeing our common humanity. Yeah. I agree.
I wasn't expecting to get this kind of common humanity
vibe out of something as as silly as awkwardness, but
I truly, truly did. Um. It's just like it's something
we all experience. It's something that can bring us together
if if you, if you look at it in the
(16:15):
right light. So now you have a whole chapter in
the book about awkwardness at work, which of course I loved.
And you opened that chapter by talking about an Ask
a Manager letter where someone had been working from home
because of a snowstorm and they're on a conference call
with their coworkers and suddenly their roommate, who was also
(16:36):
at home due to the weather, started having sex with
his girlfriend. In the next room loud sex and the
people on the work conference call could hear it. And
then after my letter writer got back to the office,
some coworkers were even avoiding them because they figured that
they had been openly watching porn on the call and
felt really uncomfortable. It doesn't get much more awkward than that.
(16:59):
So I love that you opened the work chapter with that. Yeah,
I mean, I think, especially there's so much awkwardness in
remote working situations. Um. Yeah, that that letter was so good.
It was so bad because it was like, what were
you supposed to tell that person? The letter writer like,
it's like if you usually the answer is to be direct,
(17:21):
but in this situation, like, would that have made it worse? Maybe? Right? Yeah,
because you have to be direct and sort of introduced
sex into the conversation, which were so trained to not
most of us are trained to not do at work. Yeah.
My advice to the person ultimately was, I think, yeah,
if if they were assuming that you were watching porn,
it's better to to speak up and correct that than
(17:43):
to let them go on thinking that. And actually the
person set in an update later took the advice, did
tell people what was going on, and everyone had a
good laugh about it, admitted that yes, indeed, they had
thought the person was watching porn openly on a work
conference call. I felt much better once they knew it
was really going on, and then it just turned into
an office joke. Yeah, that was such a good one.
(18:04):
But it's so funny how many of people who write
into Ask a Manager are are dealing with some kind
of like fear of awkwardness, some kind of like it's
such a running theme, and I think that's why I
love your side so much. That's why I love doing it.
I think work is especially prone to awkwardness in some ways.
And part of it goes back to what you're saying
(18:26):
about awkwardness being what happens when the face that you
want to show to the world slips. Because work is
generally a place where we're really trying to have a
professional persona on, so there's a lot of room for
it to slip, Like there's further to fall then there
might be in a non work situation, if that makes sense, right.
And it's like there are rules, like there are rules
(18:49):
that govern how you behave but there's not, but in
some situations there aren't, and so there are these gray areas.
But then it's a place that like, yeah, I think
I think the workplace is particularly prone to awkwardness. And
I think you're right. There's all these unwritten rules about
how to conduct yourself, and it's people don't always know
(19:12):
exactly what they are or exactly what the nuance of
those rules are, and it's so easy to run a
foul of them if you even know what they are
in the first place, which not everyone does. And you're
thrown together with people you might not be the most
comfortable social fit with, which is another element I think
that ups the chances of awkward encounters. I don't know.
(19:34):
Work is really awkward in so many different ways. Yeah,
it's a it's a weird place. And it does really
matter in this situation what people think of you and
what people's opinion of you is. So it's like you
can tell yourself in other situations like, oh, like it
doesn't it doesn't matter what what are the people think
of me? But it does matter at work and a
(19:54):
lot of situations. So yeah, this mistakes are really high. Yeah,
you can't just decide oh well, maybe my co workers
did think I was openly listening to watching or watching
porn on the conference call, so be it. I mean
that you have to address it. But then how no
one teaches you how to address something like that. What
do you think, like, because it's one thing to just say,
you know, just just have the awkward conversation. But do
(20:16):
you do you think that like there are ways people
can learn how to get better at it, or can
can learn how to address uncomfortable things, or do you
think it's just a matter of just doing it. This
is just the perfect setup for me to pitch my book,
which is all about how to have uncomfortable conversations at work.
But I think a lot of it is finding a
(20:39):
way to be really matter of fact, like one of
the things that feels so uncomfortable. But the prospect of
these conversations is they feel so emotionally fraught. And the
more you can talk about it, whatever it is, in
a very matter of fact way, using the same tone
that you would use to say, hey, I can't get
this printer cartridge to work, the closer you can get
(21:02):
to that, probably the less awkward it's going to be.
Not always, I mean, some things are just going to
be awkward and there's no way around that. And all
you can do is just plunge in and get through it.
But a lot you can minimize a lot of awkwardness,
I think by being a matter of fact, and people
will take their cues from you. If you approach a
conversation and you seem really tense and really worried, you know,
(21:25):
you've been up for two nights dreading this conversation, and
it shows people are going to feel really awkward because
you're signaling to them that this is worthy of a
lot of stress intention But if you're pretty calm about it,
it will usually go better. Not always, um, But I
also think there's real value I think in accepting you
(21:46):
know what, Sometimes it's just going to be awkward, and
that's not a reason to not have the conversation. That's
a reason to maybe feel weird about it and to
feel you might feel a little anxious about it, but
it's not a reason to not do it. And I
think so often and people interpret that feeling as awkwardness
as being a flag that they shouldn't even be in
that conversation. And sometimes that's true, but not always. Yeah,
(22:09):
just to me, it's it's a signal that this is
something we probably need need to pay more attention to,
not less attention. Too often, not always been, but often yes, Yeah,
I mean times when I think that wouldn't be true
would be like if you were overstepping your boundaries and
having an awkward conversation with someone about like their reproductive
plans and another doctor. But but in a lot of cases,
(22:31):
I think you're right. The fact that you are having
these emotions about it means there's something there that you've
got to dig into and sort out exactly exactly, And
it's kind of it's kind of like a it's like
a painful self consciousness or self awareness. I think the
feeling of awkwardness is. But it's it's yeah to me,
I really, I really think it's so important to you
(22:52):
have to dig into it and listen to it and
what is it trying to tell? You? Yeah. I always
feel like one of the best things that people can
do for their quality of life at work but also
just in life in general, is to just make a
conscious decision to embrace the awkward. Because we all have
horribly awkward moments that we then cringe over later on,
(23:12):
and I don't think that's going to stop. But there
is real joy and real liberation and just embracing how
awkward we all are and and finding it funny. And
I it can be hard to do that, but I
think when you find your way there, it's such a relief. Yeah,
that's that's another thing I read about in the book.
I really believe that too, Like if you can kind
(23:32):
of I mean, I feel like I'm a lesson I'm
having to learn over and over again in life, is
to just lighten up and nothing take things so seriously,
including myself. But um, but that really is part of
the key to dealing with self consciousness and awkward moments
is just to somehow lighten up and try to try
(23:53):
to just like take some joy in just the absurdity
of being human. Yeah, that was something I kind of
ended up learning through writing the book for sure. I
love that. Well, that is the show. Thank you for
coming on and talking with us. Yeah, thank you so
much for having me. Melissa's book is called Cringe Worthy,
(24:13):
A Theory of Awkwardness, and you can order it on
Amazon or wherever books are sold, and you can read
more of her work at New York Magazine, where she
writes the Science of Us column. For The Cut, it
was such a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much,
Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the
Ask a Manager Podcast. If you'd like to come on
the show to talk through your own question, email it
(24:34):
to podcast at Asking manager dot org, or you can
leave a recording of your question by calling eight five
five six work. That's eight five ft six nine seven five.
You can get more ask a Manager at ask a
Manager dot org or in my book Ask a Manager
How to Navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and the
rest of your life at work. The Ask a Manager
Show is a partnership with how Stuff Works and is
(24:56):
produced by Paul Deckett. If you liked what you heard,
please take a minute to subscribe and review the show
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play. I'm Alison Green
and I'll be back next week with another one of
your questions. M
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