How to survive awkward encounters

5 hours ago7 min read3 comments

Thanksgiving, for so many of us, feels like the Super Bowl of awkwardness. You love these people, mostly, but the social scripts are fuzzy at best.Do we hug? Do we talk politics? What do you possibly say when your aunt hits you with the third 'so, how’s work?' in a single hour? We tend to internalize that squirming discomfort, treating it as a personal failing, a sign that we’re somehow bad at socializing or fundamentally broken. Alexandra Plakias, a philosopher at Hamilton College and the author of 'Awkwardness: A Theory,' believes that’s the wrong story entirely.She offers a refreshingly liberating perspective: there are no awkward people, only awkward situations. In her view, awkwardness blossoms in the gaps, in those moments when the unwritten scripts that usually guide our social lives suddenly break down, leaving us to improvise without a map or a safety net.It’s the social equivalent of a power outage; the lights go out, and everyone fumbles in the dark, unsure of what to do next. I’ve always been fascinated by how people navigate these universal human experiences, and Plakias’s framework resonates deeply with the countless conversations I’ve had with individuals who replay these moments for years, cringing at the memory.The core of her argument is that awkwardness isn’t a 'you' problem; it’s an 'us' problem, a shared failure of context and expectation. This distinction is crucial because it redistributes the weight of social friction.When someone says, 'Sean is awkward at parties,' they could mean Sean feels intensely uncomfortable, or they could mean Sean’s presence makes everyone else feel off-balance. These are two profoundly different claims that often get blurred together, unfairly branding the individual.Some people genuinely struggle to read the subtle music of social cues, while others give off cues that are slightly out of sync with the mainstream rhythm—their eye contact is a beat too long, their conversational timing is a hair off. This misalignment creates a jagged, stuttering interaction, but it doesn’t mean we should reduce the entire complex dance to a simple personality label.Often, what’s really happening is that our internal scripts are misaligned, and blaming one person as 'the awkward one' only obscures that shared responsibility. Then there are those who feel awkward almost constantly, not because the situations demand it, but because they are running a relentless, hyper-critical commentary in their own heads, evaluating every gesture and word.This internal auditor amplifies the awkwardness, creating far more of it than the situation itself warrants. Plakias draws a keen distinction between awkwardness and its close cousin, cringe.Awkwardness is live, in-the-moment uncertainty. You’re standing there, trying to figure out if it’s a hug or a handshake.Cringe, however, is the ghost that haunts you later. It’s the visceral recoil you feel three days after the party, when you’re driving to the supermarket and your brain suddenly serves up a high-definition memory of your clumsy comment.It’s a retrospective emotion, and we tether it to awkward moments because we so often interpret social stumbles as a shameful revelation of our true, flawed selves. If you can shift that internal narrative, if you can reframe that moment as 'the script broke down' rather than 'I am broken,' the cringe begins to lose its power.The memory might remain uncomfortable, but it ceases to be a deep, personal indictment. Think of the most common awkward moments people confess: clogging a toilet at a dinner party, sending a text meant for one person to an entire group chat, the classic hug-handshake misfire that results in a fumbling half-embrace.Goodbyes are a particular minefield. Do you seek out the host? Announce your departure to the room? Slip out quietly? The uncertainty about the correct script is the very engine of the awkwardness.And then there are the more intimate varieties, like the peculiar agony of hearing your own voice on a podcast while in the company of friends, of being a 'public self' in front of an audience that knows your private one. This fear of awkwardness carries a real social cost.We lose genuine connection and avoid vital topics because we’re terrified of making things 'weird. ' Grief is a heartbreaking example.So many people who are mourning speak of friends and colleagues who simply vanish—not from a lack of compassion, but from a paralyzing fear of saying the wrong thing. Consequently, they say nothing at all, creating a profound isolation for someone in their moment of greatest need.The goal, then, shouldn’t be the eradication of awkwardness. A certain amount of social hesitation is healthy; it provides a crucial pause, a moment to reflect before we automatically slip into well-worn but potentially harmful scripts.What we can strive for is a change in our relationship with it. We can practice admitting uncertainty aloud—'I’m never sure what the protocol is here, what do you prefer?'—bringing the hidden question into the open and dismantling its power.We can clarify our priorities in advance. If you know politics at Thanksgiving will be tense, decide what matters more: standing up for a value or preserving a relationship? That clarity becomes an anchor in the uncomfortable conversation.And finally, there is the simple, powerful medicine of exposure. The more you allow yourself to feel awkward without treating it as a social catastrophe, the less control it has over you.You begin to build a new, quieter story: 'That was uncomfortable, but I survived. It was a moment in time, and it did not define me. '.

#awkwardness

#social interactions

#psychology

#philosophy

#culture

#editorial picks news

#communication

#holidays

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