Awkward

  Intimately Awkward

  WHEN IT COMES to awkward people and their experiences with dating, there are a few studies that provide insight. The intuitive hypothesis is that awkward people should have more trouble picking up subtle, flirtatious cues and might struggle with executing subtle flirtatious behaviors themselves. If reading romantic situations and executing the needed behaviors is more difficult for them, then awkward people should also be less likely to be in romantic relationships.

  Flirtation is like the double-black-diamond ski slope in the world of social skills. There is no one flirtatious signal that means someone is romantically interested, but rather romantic interest is decoded by individuals taking in multiple signals and searching for a pattern that indicates romantic intent. For example, someone who squares their body toward you, looks you in the eye, and smiles is probably just a socially fluent person who is being affable. But if someone squares toward you, leans into your space, casts a number of long gazes, giggles while touching her hair, touches your leg, then there is a reason to suspect that she might be romantically interested. But the probability never reaches 100 percent; it’s a maddening asymptotic rise that falls short of complete certainty. That means that there is always room for error or misinterpretation of how the cues add up and some of us are more prone to misinterpretation than others.

  An interesting study about awkward people’s romantic relationships comes from a graduate thesis by Kojo Mintah at Carleton University. Mintah surveyed 124 university students to investigate whether awkward participants were more likely to misinterpret romantic interest. Mintah found that they were more likely to misinterpret platonic social cues as flirtatious. Awkward participants’ misperception of platonic cues was associated with a greater likelihood of engaging in inappropriate dating behaviors such as obsessional interest or making inappropriate comments.

  It’s understandable that awkward individuals’ difficulties with interpreting social cues would be particularly problematic in the context of romantic relationships. It’s always awkward when someone remains romantically interested in someone who clearly does not reciprocate the same feelings, but it’s also problematic because barking up the wrong tree comes with an opportunity cost, which is that awkward people are not pursuing more promising possibilities. It would seem that their difficulty in accurately interpreting these romantic cues would make them less likely to be involved in romantic relationships than their non-awkward peers.

  Lisa Jobe and Susan Williams White recruited ninety-seven undergraduate participants to investigate whether this is the case. They found that socially awkward participants were actually more likely to report currently being involved in a romantic relationship, not because they had more dating opportunities than non-awkward participants, but rather because their average length of relationship was longer (eighteen months) than those of non-awkward participants (eleven months).

  There are a few ways to interpret this result. One pragmatic explanation for awkward people’s longer relationships is that they know initiating a new relationship will be particularly challenging for their social skill set, so they hold on longer to a current relationship. But another possibility is that they are able to be more selective because they do not have to deal with the same volume of dating opportunities as non-awkward people, or they want to be extra certain that they are interested in dating someone beforehand because the anxiety of communicating their romantic intent is even more intense than what most people feel.

  Once awkward individuals get into a relationship, they are faced with negotiating a qualitatively different set of expectations as the initial giddiness of the first few months of dizzying passion subside. Emotionally intimate relationships are characterized by partners who readily share personal information, respond empathically to their partner’s self-disclosures, and make the effort to form accurate theories about their partners’ needs. These intimacy-building behaviors can be challenging to awkward individuals, who are less likely to share their interests and emotions with others and who are prone to misreading the meaning that others are trying to convey. Awkward individuals may have trouble adapting their routines to accommodate the lifestyle of another person. They are also at risk for becoming emotionally overwhelmed by the intense emotions in a romantic relationship.

  These obstacles inherent in relationships that involve an awkward person are not insurmountable, but awkward people need to fix their sharp focus on the right things for a relationship to thrive. One of the keys to successful relationships lies in the expectations people hold for their partners and the effort that each partner is willing to devote to adapt their behaviors to the best of their ability to meet the needs of the other. As in any relationship, partners in romantic relationships need to have a sense that the balance of benefits and costs is equitable for a satisfying relationship.

  Monique Pollman and her colleagues from the University of Amsterdam recruited 195 married heterosexual couples to assess whether awkward traits would be associated with marital satisfaction. There are at least two possible ways that awkward traits can operate in relationships: your level of awkwardness could affect your perceptions of marital satisfaction, and your partner’s level of awkwardness could be associated with your marital satisfaction.

  Pollman found that women married to awkward husbands and women married to non-awkward husbands showed no differences in marital satisfaction. Awkward wives and non-awkward wives also reported similar levels of marital satisfaction. For women, their levels of awkwardness and the awkwardness of their husbands did not adversely affect their overall levels of marital satisfaction.

  For husbands the outcomes were mixed. Pollman found no differences in marital satisfaction between men married to awkward wives and men married to non-awkward wives. But awkward men reported less marital satisfaction than non-awkward men. Pollman found that awkward men’s lower levels of satisfaction were partly explained by their being less trusting and perceiving less intimacy. The pattern of results paints a picture of awkward men who are struggling to be at peace with the relationship, who are not trusting that things will work out, and whose guarded attitudes make it a struggle to feel a deeper sense of emotional intimacy.

  These findings illustrate a broader conceptual point about close relationships, whether they are romantic, familial, or friendships. People generally expect that relationships become more intimate over time, but this is an expectation that can be particularly difficult for awkward individuals. Unlike initial interactions where manners and social scripts can be routinely executed, the expectations for building relationship intimacy are far less predictable. If the long-term goal in a relationship is to feel a sense of belonging that is satisfying and stable, then awkward individuals can think about achieving this goal with two separate skill sets. The first is figuring out how to navigate minor social expectations such as meeting new people, going to a dinner party, or running a work meeting. The other skill set comes into play once they forge a deeper friendship or get past the early stages of dating and begin to build intimacy, which psychologists define as a deeper sense of emotional connection and mutual reliance between two people.

  Brooke Feeney at Carnegie Mellon University, a leading relationship scientist, has articulated a dependency paradox in romantic relationships. One of the most powerful mechanisms for building intimacy is self-disclosure and support, which begins with one person sharing a personal thought or feeling that makes him feel somewhat vulnerable. When the listener responds in an empathic and supportive way, then a degree of trust and intimacy is built, but this self-disclosure is a two-way street and the disclosures need to be shared and properly dosed. People who disclose too much, too quickly can scare people away, but conversely, people who never share private matters feel distant.

  When romantic partners lean on each other for support, they are more confident about their independence. This does not refer to the needy kind of dependency in which someone cannot do anything on their own without their partner,
but rather a confidence that during times of uncertainty or distress one can rely upon their partner to be supportive and loyal. When partners consistently provide emotional support when their significant others need it, those being offered support are more likely to persist and achieve goals outside of the relationship, such as school or work goals.

  Awkward individuals are prone to being hyper-independent, which is partly due to their trait-like aloofness, introversion, and nonsocial interests. Awkward individuals’ ability to overcome their difficulties with intimacy lies in their willingness to lean on their partner for support, which fosters a feeling of connection and builds the reassurance necessary for each partner to give the other space for autonomous pursuits and interests. But their hyper-independence makes it hard for them to believe that being more dependent on a partner can make them feel more independent.

  The dependency paradox is hard to manage because self-disclosure comes with a real risk that the partner will not respond well or could eventually abandon the relationship. Romantic relationships are always a high-stakes gamble and the stakes rise the first time you hold hands, say “I love you,” or share your most private thoughts and feelings. All of this can create such intense emotions that people are inclined to fold while they are ahead, based on a reasonable rationale that their emotional gambles could result in losing it all. But in matters of love, it’s not an option to bring a halfhearted level of participation to the table.

  When awkward people decide to do something, they really decide to do it 100 percent, and if there’s anything in life that requires a 100 percent commitment to have a chance of success it’s our romantic relationships. If an awkward person’s partner is willing to be patient, and an awkward partner is willing to commit his focused attention and persistence to figuring out how to build intimacy and adopt a flexibility beyond what is comfortable for him, then he has as good a chance as anyone to become a thoughtful and loyal partner.

  The Awkward Path to Happily Ever After

  THE PROFOUND IMPORTANCE of romantic relationships in fulfilling our sense of belonging gives them an explosive potential. This amplified emotional potential accounts for why they can make us feel so emotionally unstable, which affects our ability to judiciously navigate our relationships in at least two ways.

  The disorienting euphoria that accompanies being in love with someone shuts down our ability to think straight and unmet expectations can create an intensely upsetting emotional state that is ripe for our saying something hurtful that we don’t believe and would never dream of saying to anyone, much less someone we love. But the explosive emotional potential of romantic relationships also gives us anxiety about setting off emotions that may push us far outside of our comfort zone. While some people are most fearful of hurting someone else through too many irritable outbursts, others are frightened that they will not be able to deliver enough intimacy, that ineffable signal that shows your partner that deep down you love him or her more than anything else in this world.

  After my first book, about the search for enduring romantic relationships, came out, people often asked me, “What is the most important factor for a successful relationship?” Relationship researchers have quantified dozens of relationship behaviors that predict happy and stable partnerships, but when I have to choose just one piece of advice, I usually reply with a less quantitative answer.

  When older adults lose their partner after decades of being together, they will tell you that what they miss the most are the “small things” that they sometimes took for granted in their relationship. They miss the daily habits that they shared with their partner, the quirky acts of cooperation that made two people an “us.” Bereaved partners will tear up when they tell you that they miss their walks around the lake or driving to work together. A gentleman who had lost his wife of fifty years still gets me choked up when I think about him saying, “I miss that she was the only one who knew that I liked two lumps of sugar in my coffee.”

  What older adults miss is the spirit of cooperation that evolved between two people and the generous acts that their partner quietly carried out for them on a daily basis. As the pace of life picks up and other responsibilities outside of the marriage occupy people’s minds, these subtle behaviors can be taken for granted and some people do not realize what they are missing until their partner is gone. For awkward people who can get their spotlighted attention narrowly focused on nonsocial interests, there needs to be an ongoing mindfulness to give their concentrated attention to their partner on a daily basis. Sometimes the people who love us the most are the least likely to ask for the spotlight.

  Awkward people might face some unique challenges in their relationships compared to non-awkward people. They are probably more likely to misread what their partners mean or might become overwhelmed by the intensity of emotion in romantic relationships, but all partners have their challenges and all couples have difficulties to surmount. In long-term relationships, the psychological principles that carry a relationship across years or decades are fairness, kindness, and loyalty, but romantic relationships present some of the steepest challenges for enacting these pro-social attitudes and behaviors. Whether people are awkward or socially fluent, the best advice is to be unabashedly generous and ever-vigilant about their partners’ acts of cooperation and kindness.

  PART III

  HOW THE AWKWARD BECOME AWESOME

  9

  PRACTICALLY PRODIGIOUS

  Prodigious: [pruh-dij-uhs] (adjective)

  (1) extraordinary in size, force (2) wonderful or marvelous

  (3) abnormal, monstrous

  Ellen Winner is professor and chair of psychology at Boston College, a senior research associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and author of Gifted Children: Myths and Realities. She is one of the world’s leading experts on giftedness, and when I talked to her about the relationship between social awkwardness and giftedness, she offered a number of thoughtful insights.

  Professor Winner finds that gifted individuals have a razor-sharp focus on and insatiable curiosity about their areas of interest and work tirelessly at mastering them. But she also finds that their intense focus and strong drive come with increased risks for problems with their social and emotional lives. Gifted kids have twice the risk for social and emotional problems when compared to nongifted kids. This risk is the same as the risk for chronically bullied kids to develop depression in adulthood and the same as the risk for overweight individuals to develop cardiac disease as adults.

  When I asked Professor Winner about why gifted kids sometimes struggle socially, she said, “The more gifted a child is, the more rare that child is, and therefore the more difficulty the child will have in finding others like himself or herself. So I actually believe that the social awkwardness stems from the fact that they can’t find other kids like themselves, and when they do they are less socially awkward.”

  Gifted kids often have trouble feeling like they fit in because they’re different, but they also are less likely to seek out as much social interaction as other kids. Professor Winner put it this way, “These kids are more introverted than other kids, and they get more stimulation from their own minds. That might make them seem more socially awkward because they don’t seek out others as much.” There is also an intensity about gifted children that can strike others as odd. When I asked Professor Winner if this intensity is partly attributable to a spotlight-like focus, she agreed: “Gifted kids are passionate about their area and so they have more of a spotlight instead of a searchlight.”

  Not all gifted kids are awkward and not all awkward kids are gifted, but we will see that there is remarkable overlap between the two characteristics, and that giftedness and awkwardness may produce a synergistic effect that produces something that is far greater than the sum of its parts.

  When Awkwardness Is Adaptive

  TO BEGIN THINKING about the unique value of awkward individuals, it’s helpful to begin with an evolutionary perspective: If the nee
d to belong is fundamental, then why has social awkwardness persisted as a trait through natural selection? From this perspective, awkward individuals’ difficulty meeting social expectations should have threatened their belonging to social groups, which would have decreased their chances of survival and successfully mating. If awkward characteristics were mostly negative qualities, then they should have faded over successive generations because awkward people would have been less likely to pass along their genes.

  Bernard Crespi is a professor of biological sciences at Simon Frazier University who has studied why characteristics that are viewed as maladaptive might have carried an adaptive purpose. From a natural selection perspective, the primary reason why human characteristics evolve is to maximize our chances of survival and reproductive success; they do not evolve to increase our likelihood of being happy. It’s not that people should not strive to be happy, but as we consider the upside of awkward characteristics from an evolutionary perspective, we want to keep in mind that it’s through the lens of why awkwardness would have helped people survive or mate.

  One hypothesis is that awkwardness is a trade-off. Broadly spoken, trade-offs occur when one trait increases in strength and another trait decreases in strength.

  Awkward people are more likely to show a number of unusual strengths, including enhanced abilities for solving tasks that require systematic processes such as those in math or science, seeing patterns in the midst of complex visual stimuli, and an ability to persist at repetitive tasks in their areas of interest. The trade-offs are diminished abilities to intuitively empathize, difficulty developing a theory of other people’s minds, and a tendency to lose sight of the big picture. The question is whether the strengths that tend to accompany awkwardness outweigh or at least balance out the social challenges that come along with being awkward.