// Cringeworthy: How to Make the Most of Uncomfortable Situations // 15.07.18
It can be miserable to feel hypersensitive to the awkwardness of everyday life, but I'd rather be the sort of person who is aware of it than the sort of person who isn't.
Do you just see yourself, or do you place yourself within the wider context of others' experience?
If you don't see me the way I see me, does it even matter? All this work I'm doing to convince you of who I am. And for that matter - who am I?
A Sense of Occasion
Awkwardness is the feeling we get when someone's presentation of themselves - either our own or someone else's - is shown to be incompatible with reality.
The distinction between the lived and the corporeal self is that the former is in your head, whereas the latter is out there in the real world. You can pretend that these two selves are one and the same, until some kind of awkward mishaps occurs and yanks you out of that fantasy. You trip over your own feet and suddenly you're aware of how ridiculous you must look, and that the you walking around out there does not always do such a good job of living up to the standards of the you that exists in your imagination.
Not only are we trying to present ourselves in a certain way, but we’re also simultaneously trying to interpret the impression others are trying to make on us. We obsess over these little cues in part because we’re trying to figure out what they say about us, and in part to monitor whether this person is buying the image we are trying to protect.
Isolation is damaging today too, even without the threat of sabre-toothed tigers.
With all jokes, and any sort of comedic setup, you think it's going one way, but it goes another way. And usually the other way reveals some level of truth that maybe you hadn’t thought about.
It can be miserable to feel hypersensitive to the awkwardness of everyday life, but I'd rather be the sort of person who is aware of it than the sort of person who isn't.
Do you just see yourself, or do you place yourself within the wider context of others' experience?
If you don't see me the way I see me, does it even matter? All this work I'm doing to convince you of who I am. And for that matter - who am I?
A Sense of Occasion
Awkwardness is the feeling we get when someone's presentation of themselves - either our own or someone else's - is shown to be incompatible with reality.
The distinction between the lived and the corporeal self is that the former is in your head, whereas the latter is out there in the real world. You can pretend that these two selves are one and the same, until some kind of awkward mishaps occurs and yanks you out of that fantasy. You trip over your own feet and suddenly you're aware of how ridiculous you must look, and that the you walking around out there does not always do such a good job of living up to the standards of the you that exists in your imagination.
Not only are we trying to present ourselves in a certain way, but we’re also simultaneously trying to interpret the impression others are trying to make on us. We obsess over these little cues in part because we’re trying to figure out what they say about us, and in part to monitor whether this person is buying the image we are trying to protect.
Isolation is damaging today too, even without the threat of sabre-toothed tigers.
With all jokes, and any sort of comedic setup, you think it's going one way, but it goes another way. And usually the other way reveals some level of truth that maybe you hadn’t thought about.
