Simple Thoughts on Social Fears: My Social Fear, My Social Beauty

Have you ever get scared of social interactions? Have you ever get anxious about gathering with family or friends without knowing why? Have you ever felt uncomfortable for no reason in the middle of your catch-ups?

If you say yes, I’ll let you know that I feel you. I was with you on that pile of fears, but now, I am with you to give a little bit of sharing so you can reach up. Here’s the key points of my sharing.

• Brief introduction to social fears;
• Motivational thoughts on people with social fears;
• My social beauty: fear of causing offense.

I hope you read this writing to the end. And, if you resonate with my post, feel free to click buy me French fries.

Brief Introduction to Social Fears

Some people are familiar with social fears, while some others hear social anxiety more often. These two may have a different medical devinition (I don’t know), I personally don’t talk from medical perspective since it’s out of my field. What I call social fears are a bunch of “what if” that appears during my social interactions, like these list of fears below.

• What if they think me unsuccessful?
• What if they judge me useless?
• What if they don’t want me to be around?

Yes, those kind of fears. As I have all the “what if” in my mind, I don’t really think the enxiety follows along. It’s just the worries appearing, so I don’t call it social enxiety. Should I call it social worries instead? Lol

Motivational Thoughts on People with Social Fears

To those who want to hide from the social lives, to those who have a lot of what if in each of the interaction with people, I suggest to remember this fact. We don’t have to erase the fears, we just need to have them in control.

Yes, we just need to have them in control. If people still blame you for thinking this way, the problem isn’t within you, but them.

Growing up, I had been in a lot of different fears (not only social fears). What I’ve found is, pushing away fears really takes a lot of time and drains a lot of energy. Plus, the result of erasing social fears is mostly bad. I can’t enjoy the richness of human connection.

Having those fears in control, however, is way easier than erasing, and I  even feel the benefits out of it. I can reduce its strengths and even turn it into a help to socialize better. Here’s my thoughts on why it helps.

• Social fears grow your understanding of others, leads to thoughtful consideration of actions and words.

Believe it or not, social fears make you treat others like the way you wish to be treated. If you’re afraid of being judged, you will not judge others that easy. If you are afraid of being underestimated, you’ll prompt your brain to not underestimate others, because you know it triggers insecure feelings even more.

Also, if you’re afraid of embarrassment, you’ll find out that being careful always becomes your default setting. Or, if rejection is your social fear, your hands are always opened to hug and comfort everyone. Your empathy gets increased without you realizing.

Now, after reading my thoughts on this, do you think your social fears can be considered as your beauties, as long as they’re in your right control? Think about it!

My Social Beauty: Fear of Causing Offense

Out of all social fears I’ve known, fear of causing offense is the only one I can’t really get over. Everytime I form new friendships, this fear always comes. Whenever I ask questions, my mind asks myself like “what if I cause offense with my questions, and how would I know if they don’t hurt?”

I personally don’t like questions like these.

“Hey, Dhawy. Why do you look depressed in this photo?”

No joke, I actually heard that question from my online bestie. That time I was like: “how do I look to look depressed, huh?”

Next example, coming from a lot of people in real life. “How much money do you make as a musician?”

In my mind, I was like “excuse me, would you give me money for free if I didn’t earn much?”

Last one, coming from a random person on the language learning app. “You’re eating cheesecake at night. Aren’t you afraid to get fat?”

And then me, saying out loud, “I am afraid to be offensive, Sir.”

Offensive questions vary, depending on the cultural norms and sensitivities of the persons. Went from there on, I train myself to do the following to not offend people.

• Always taking time to learn about different cultures, perspectives and social norms.
• Understanding different situational context and respectful manner.
• Putting myself in the shoes of the person I’m interacting with.
• Considering how people might feel about my questions.
• Not using questions to go too deep into personal lives.

Closing Statement

Having social fears doesn’t mean you’re not okay. People with social fears are strong, because they were made to find beauties within the fears.

Don’t be sad if you can’t see the beautiful part of having fears like that. You can always read my thoughts above to help yourself. You can also learn from my examples, and even share the blog post to your fellow learners to help each other. You can always make a step!

I highly appreciate all of you for clicking this post. I look forward to hear your feedback. Please leave me some comments here! Or, you can also click buy me French fries to support me.