Paleo is good, sugar is bad and so is the crippling
emotional trauma of living with someone who is awkward and dysfunctional in
social settings. Arguably all these things are myths - irrational, biased and
almost certainly wrong. However, they are still things we need to deal with and
I’m going to work you through them. Well not the paleo or the sugarfree ones
(because they ARE irrational, biased and wrong). The living with someone who is
social awkward one. Because I’m an expert.
To start we need to do a little roleplay to establish the
difference between the social and the socially awkward. I’ll throw you a common
situation that in a figurative sense happens literally hundreds of times a day.
To setup the situation, suppose two people meet….
Person: “Good morning!”
Socially competent Person Response: “Hello random stranger
or possibly slight acquaintance, how about that weather?”
You will notice the back and forth in the conversation, many
people will acknowledge this as appropriate. You may also notice that the two
are now well into a long winded discussion about FUCKING NOTHING. Let’s see how
someone from the other side of the fence would respond to the same.
Socially inept Response: “Ummm”Inner inept: Holy shit, was that even a response? Help!
Inner inept inner monologue: Hell, I don’t know. Try addressing your concerns about the status of the weather.
Inner inept: What for? Do people really like parroting the obvious? Isn’t that kind of meaningless?
Inner inept: Nope, male. Also, I can’t stop staring at HIS chest now. Thanks for that.
Inner inept inner monologue: I was afraid of this. Have you tried baring your teeth and hissing?
Inner inept: I’m not going to do that. Anyway they seem to be backing away and carefully herding their children around me. Whatever we did appears to be wrong again.
Inner inept inner monologue: You should dwell on the conversation for 15 minutes, think of everything you could have done better and proceed to never utilise any of these anguished improvements.
Inner inept: Done!
To breakdown the roleplay, the competent wordsmith firmly
believes that society hinges on inane conversations that have no practical or
ongoing benefit. From the socially awkward perspective any interaction is about
as fathomable as the female orgasm. You can’t help the depressed by telling
them to “snap out of it”, likewise you can’t fix the social inept by engaging
them further in conversation. This just increases their inner self-flagellation
as they work out how a simple conversation turned so awkward without ever
comprehending why.
By now you probably have identified if your partner, friend
or colleague is suffering from social ineptitude. Future instalments of this
instructional guide will lead you step by step through understanding and
treatment of this condition. In next week’s instalment we will go over the
tools the sufferers use to avoid social situations entitled “Is Cracked.com,
TheChive or Reddit more interesting than you? In a way no, of course not. In
another more accurate way, yes of course they are”.
This author is available for personal skype ‘help’ sessions
with your loved one where we don’t talk about feelings and play DOTA. They
better be able to play a carry.
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