如何克服社交拒绝和尴尬

归属的本能

人类有一种本能的需求，那就是被他人接受并感到与他人相连。我们完全不具备独自生存的能力，而部落之间的合作则是我们的本能。 我们赖以生存的根本 as a species. Through most of human history, and occasionally still in the present times, being different or not fitting in didn’t only mean social rejection – it meant your tribe could straight up turn against you and murder you, such as in “witch hunts” or “honor killings”. Even pack animals are known to show hostility to pack members who look different, like albino cubs. Often, it’s not only people who stick out in “negative” ways who are rejected – many high quality people end up rejected simply because they are different than average.

因此，我们人类发展出了一种深刻的 怕被拒绝的本能, which makes us judge ourselves by others’ feedback – to question ourselves and form conclusions about ourselves based on what people around us tell us or how they treat us. This instinct is the strongest in a child, but adult people feel it too.

然而，就像任何其他个人特质和本能一样，如同情心、智慧、对权力的需求等，归属感和被接受的本能也是如此。 不是每个人都有同样的能力. Some people don’t seem to have much of it. Even as children, they don’t suffer as much as most when they feel rejected, and as adults they don’t care much about fitting in. Interestingly, this is often exactly 这也是很多人敬佩他们的原因 并希望与他们为伍。

我们确实感受到，如果部落的规则和期望是僵硬的，那么融入部落的需求就会成为多么大的限制和负担，而且 我们暗自渴望获得更多自由. Thus, paradoxically, it’s often the people with the strongest need to fit in who end up rejected, dismissed, or even bullied, because their fear of others’ opinions makes them shy, awkward and tense, which others don’t appreciate. Human mind and human nature are full of paradoxes.

家庭影响

作为成年人，我们将如何应对社会排斥，主要是 取决于我们的童年经历 (besides the innate strength of our instinct to belong). As I wrote in the article “儿童需要挑战“, children who feel supported by their parents can much more easily cope with problems in the outer world, because parents are much more important to young children than the outer world.

但是，如果我们觉得自己被父母拒绝了，或者对父母来说自己不够有趣，那么我们在家庭之外所经历的每一次拒绝都会证实我们对自己已有的不良看法，并使我们的看法更加深刻。事实上，我们很可能不会注意到或很快 dismiss any feedback that doesn’t match the feedback we got from our parents – even when the external feedback is positive. This pattern can easily persist into adulthood.

如果我们的父母自己觉得社交能力不足，害怕邻居说什么，情况就更糟了。 父母怕什么，孩子更怕什么尤其是当恐惧驱使父母惩罚孩子时。因此，我们的一些社交恐惧和不足感可能是 跨代 – not only coming from our own childhood, but from our parents’ childhoods (and further).

孩童时代的不足感会驱使我们 成人之美无论是通过模仿父母和更广泛的社会的过度补偿方式，还是通过寻找我们自己的方式。有些人通过购买 身份象征, 与受欢迎和有权势的人为伍 (包括恋爱 与这些人在一起）和追随流行趋势。有些人会通过以下方式进行过度补偿 力不从心 越来越多的人希望脱颖而出，获得地位、奖项和认可。有些人走上了 给予，使他们得到也许最终会成为受害者和烈士。 有些人放弃了 and become social recluses, trying to convince themselves that being accepted by others doesn’t matter to them.

如何保持成人状态

就像我们成人日常生活中的许多其他经历一样 不自觉地触发童年记忆 童年的记忆和童稚的感觉，以及不被接纳和包容的体验。当童年记忆被触发时，我们很可能会开始 稚气未脱 – exaggerated, generalized, self-centered, black and white. We may ignore rational explanations and focus on our childhood feelings of inadequacy, loneliness and self-blame.

It’s very important to 首先认识到你是在对过去做出反应 more than the present. You may mentally say to yourself: “These are emotions from the past” (or, sometimes, “This is my biology acting up”). Observe the feelings and ideas that come up and check what age they seem to belong to. When you are able to separate the past from the present, you might already feel much calmer and more objective.

花点时间 冷静下来，安慰内心的孩子. Remind it that whatever happened in childhood wasn’t (all) your mistake. As soon as you have more time, use it to work on healing the relationship with parents. Try to 获得父母支持的感觉.如果你的父母真的是有毒的，你甚至会在脑海中想象出健康的父母来支持你。在我们的工作中，我们有一系列治疗家庭影响的适应性方法。

提前做好准备 for potentially unpleasant social situations. If you are going to a gathering where you expect you might feel awkward, accept the possibility that people might not react to you the way you’d like. Imagine yourself comforting your inner child and reminding yourself of your qualities. Imagine yourself staying calm and adult and accepting of yourself. The more you can prepare up front to deal with such situations, the less they will surprise you and make you lose resources – and then if nothing else you won’t look and feel so awkward. A loner who accepts themselves is more relaxing to be around than a loner who is tense and uncomfortable.

实用建议

Next, recognize that just like most people don’t have time and energy to be particularly interested in you, you also don’t have time and energy to be particularly interested in most other people. It doesn’t mean you dislike them and deem them unworthy, and the other way around. By adult age, most people have formed their “tribes” and are too busy with them to seek further. Once a tribe is formed, people find it more difficult (but not impossible) to accept new people into it. That doesn’t say anything much about yours or their personalities, it’s simply a fact of human life. Remind yourself of people who do like you and think well of you.

要找到自己的部落，你需要 搜索与你相似的人 rather than trying to be accepted by most people. If you have an artistic mind, you are not likely to find much understanding among IT experts, and if you are an intellectual, you are not likely to fit in among sportspeople. Accept that you can’t be good in everything and fit in everywhere. Search for a smaller number of quality relationships, rather than being accepted by whole groups. Remind yourself that not having qualities one group of people demands, probably means 你还有其他优点 另一个群体可能会欣赏。

同样，你的个人特质可能会被一些人鄙视和排斥，但这可能意味着你拥有 其他方面的额外优势 and other circumstances. There is a lot of duality in our human lives, and many traits that are advantageous in some ways turn out to be problematic in other ways, and the other way around. A shy and sensitive person might not be very stimulating in a big group, but can be very empathetic and a good friend in private, or very creative, or very insightful. A serious person might seem intimidating to many, but people are usually serious if they think a lot, or are responsible, and they are often responsible and think a lot because they care – and/or they have busy minds and rich inner worlds.

So, focus on your strengths and build upon them, rather than dwelling on your weaknesses. Perhaps you have strengths – warmth, gentleness, intelligence… – your early environment taught you to hide rather than express. Consider how you can let them show again. Keep in mind that most people will be impressed by your character and communication skills rather than technical expertise.

Of course, you might be rejected because you are objectively unpleasant – aggressive, arrogant or (borderline) narcissistic. Such people are not likely to come to my website anyway. But in case you are, consider where such behavior might be coming from. In my experience, most aggression, arrogance and narcissism compensates for deep unconscious sense of inadequacy or even self-hatred, which you need to heal. The more you learn to like and accept yourself in a healthy way, the more you can be aware of others, appreciative and considerate to others.

尝试 take a look at yourself through other people’s eyes. You might find that they were simply too preoccupied with themselves to pay attention to you – or you might feel there was something about you they disliked – perhaps you miss on social cues, or overcompensate in too obvious ways, or they confuse your shyness with arrogance or your seriousness with covert criticism (both quite common!), or they feel tense around a person who feels awkward.

如果你发现了类似的情况，请避免责备和批评自己（这很可能是父母批评的回声，你也可以努力治愈）。记住，就像我在 如何克服犯错恐惧这意味着 错误是最好的学习方式. Consider what parts of your behavior you want to change and why, and what you don’t want to change and why. Keep in mind that some changes might be good for you, but too much conformism might make you lose some important qualities. Then explore how you can start changing the parts of your behavior you want to change. Take small steps, don’t fear mistakes but use them to learn more – and don’t overcompensate.

向激励你或让你感觉良好的人学习。 How do they communicate with others? What non-verbal signals do they send? What do they do that makes you feel good? Perhaps you cannot become quite like them without changing yourself too much – but some small changes might go a long way.

最后 主动. Learn how to use small talk and how to approach people – it’s easier than you might think! Present yourself as approachable, verbally and non-verbally. Seek people who look interested and open to communication, but don’t just wait for them to approach you. Be kind and 问津 – people are the most attracted to people who show clear interest in them. Yet keep your sense of balance, use your intuition and don’t pretend you are someone you are not, or agree with things you don’t agree. In short, be your best self but be genuine. Show your passion, talk about things that are important to you, but don’t expect everybody to agree or show interest.

Seek new activities which are at least somewhat interesting to you, and which make it possible to interact with people directly rather than being a passive audience to something. Mountaineering, dancing, art classes, scientific gatherings, self-improvement workshops, volunteering, literary evenings… use your creativity. The website 聚会 列出了较大城镇的许多会议，并按类别进行了分类。也许您还想自己组织一些活动。

Just like with looking for a job or a partner, you need to put yourself out there and check out many people to find out who suits you the most. Every experience is worth something. Even if you don’t feel at ease with most people, a small number of new friends is worth the search. Once you make a few friends, you might introduce them to each other – and then you might have your own little tribe.

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