How to Navigate Those Scary Social Events
You May Even Start To Like Them
I won’t lie.
I still think of 100 reasons for not attending a party or social event. Whatever the reason I might give, the truth is, I still find social gatherings hard work.
These days, I consider myself confident in social situations. That said, I am still an introvert, so I don’t like them much.
If you are an introvert who also has social anxiety, you are really going to fail at parties. But you already know that; you tell yourself before every social event.
What is social anxiety?
Exactly as it sounds, social anxiety is feeling anxious when you are in a social setting. This could be a party, social event, work event, networking, or anything where there is a room full of people.
The people do not even have to be strangers. You may not even feel comfortable speaking at a work meeting.
It is important not to confuse social anxiety with introversion.
An introvert may not like social gatherings either, but the difference is this:
- Introverts don’t like being with lots of people because it drains their energy.
- Social anxiety sufferers are fearful of being with lots of people.
Introverts will happily go to a social gathering but if they have a choice, they like to be on their own.
Social anxiety sufferers may want to attend a social gathering but feel they don’t fit it and that makes them anxious.
Low self-confidence and low self-esteem together create social anxiety.
Setting yourself up for failure
When you suffer from social anxiety, there are different ways you unintentionally set yourself up for failure:
- Having unrealistic expectations of how you should behave
- Believing that everyone else is super-confident
- Thinking you know what everyone is thinking of you
- Already having low expectations
- Self-analyzing to the extreme
- Thinking you are being judged on your behavior and appearance
One of my clients told me that every time she walked into a room full of people, she could feel them all staring at her. Because of this, she felt that she had to look ‘perfect’ otherwise she would be judged:
- Too fat
- Not wearing the ‘right’ outfit
- Looking like she didn’t belong there
- Looking unhappy
- Looking too happy (Is she drunk?)
This type of thinking is very common and is known as ‘the spotlight effect’. The social anxiety sufferer thinks that they are being constantly judged.
Mainly these thoughts are unconscious ones, but because of this you:
- Spend hours agonizing over what to wear
- Worry too much about the way you look
- Mentally rehearse what you will say and then worry that you sound stupid
- Monitor how you are doing like it is some sort of test
Not only will you not enjoy the occasion due to overthinking and constant self-monitoring, but when you do find the confidence to speak to someone, you will be giving off strange vibes.
You will seem distracted and distant.
People may edge away from you or not approach you.
When this happens, it will only confirm your belief that you don’t fit in. This is confirmation bias — your brain looks for proof that your negative belief is true. When it finds it, it stores that memory too.
It all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
Technically, this is not you consciously sabotaging yourself, it’s a small region of your brain called the amygdala.
This is the part of your brain that governs your emotional processes. Among the many functions the amygdala runs is the fight or flight response.
Imagine you are back in prehistoric times. You are walking through the forest and suddenly see a saber-toothed tiger up ahead.
Immediately, an alarm goes off in your brain.
The amygdala takes over and gets ready to either fight the tiger or run from it. That fires off an automated set of responses in the body.
All this happens in a flash because your amygdala has bypassed the part of your brain that stops to think things through — the logical part.
It must, you are in danger!
Move forward a few thousand years to now, and you are preparing to go to a social event. To the amygdala of a socially anxious person, you might as well be back in the forest facing the saber-toothed tiger.
Over your lifetime, your brain has built up a file of reasons why social events are ‘dangerous’:
- You will be judged
- You will look stupid
- You won’t fit it
- You never know what to say
These thoughts probably started with one bad experience in childhood that has left you with the limiting belief that you are basically ‘not good enough’.
Social events only prove that.
How to tackle this
Knowing that your logical system is likely to be bypassed as you get more anxious, using logic at the ‘fight or flight’ moment won’t help.
You can tell yourself to calm down but when the adrenaline is in full flow you will lose control, fly off the handle or not be able to think straight.
You could probably avoid parties and social events altogether but that’s not easy.
I know someone who spent half of his wedding reception in his hotel room because of social anxiety.
Avoiding work events and work meetings might mean you miss out on promotion and other opportunities.
Social anxiety is based on fear. The purpose of fear is to protect you from perceived danger.
If you imagine that fear is a bodyguard (think Kevin Costner here), then you need to get the bodyguard to step down.
You don’t want the alarm in your brain to go off. You need to act before the real fear kicks in.
The Steps
Reexamine a social event
Think of the last event you attended that you feel went wrong for you.
What do you think you did wrong?
List everything, whether it was not looking right, not acting right or not speaking enough/too much.
Now zoom out and look at the whole picture.
What was really happening?
See yourself there again.
What were you thinking and what else could that mean?
For example, my client said that she walked into a room full of people and everyone looked at her.
Look again, now that you are calm.
Is everyone looking at you?
Perhaps one or two people glanced your way.
- Maybe they were just interested.
- Maybe they were expecting someone.
- Maybe they thought they knew you.
The truth is, everyone wasn’t looking at you and as for the ones that were, you have no idea what they were thinking.
Push your comfort zone as far as you are comfortable
As soon as possible, and before the next social event, think of a social occurrence where you normally feel anxious but not as dreadful as at a full-on social event.
Maybe this is eating lunch out on your own.
Maybe speaking to a stranger.
Maybe speaking up at a work meeting.
It needs to be something that you are comfortable committing to but won’t give you a panic attack.
Start doing little things to test yourself.
Then reflect on how it went.
How did you feel?
What thoughts were going on in your head?
Do you feel it was a successful episode?
The more you can do these little pushes, and the more you reflect and learn, the more confident you will get.
When it comes to the next social event
If you have had some success with pushing your comfort zone, hopefully this event will not seem quite so daunting.
Just notice how you are feeling and let yourself know that it will be OK.
Remember fear, your bodyguard (Kevin Costner if you wish)? Tell fear that you are going and you will be OK.
Leading up to the event:
- Notice anytime you are starting to have negative thoughts and don’t try to fight them.
- Let your fear know that you have been pushing your comfort zone and you have been OK.
- Remind yourself that no one is judging you.
- You don’t have to be act in any particular way, just be yourself.
- If you wish, give yourself a time limit. For example, I will stay for 2 hours and then I can leave if I wish.
- Set yourself an expectation that you will find something about the event that you enjoy.
- Set an intention that you will smile at 5 people in the first 30 minutes.
- Set another intention that you will speak to 5 people in the first hour.
Every time you set yourself a challenge and get through it, give yourself a cheer. You will be making awesome progress and gradually you will start to really enjoy these occasions.
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