I was introduced to the idea of the imaginary audience when I was learning to minister to teens. As I think we can all remember, the sometimes paralyzing feeling of being "judged" by everyone, especially our appearance. If you go to a High School sporting event, like a basketball game, you see lone teens coming into the gym. You will notice that they look nervous, uncomfortable in their own skin and paranoid, like everyone is watching their every move. That is the imaginary audience, that overwhelming feeling of standing out like a sore thumb and being throroughly conviced that everyone sees you and your faults.
As single or unmarried people it is hard not to feel this way again. Whether you are at an event with lots of married people or worse, you are with a married couple and one other single person(looks like a set up to me), or even walking into a room(fashionably late) for an event at someone's house with lots of unmarried people, the imaginary audience returns! It is hard not to feel that way because it is part "social skills" you know, looking appropriate, hair in place, not over dressed or under dressed, sizing up the room, etc...
Too often though, it goes too far to paralysis. And paralysis leads to sweaty.
How? Two key factors can turn a social, fun and relaxed event into a sweaty mess.(sweaty is feeling panicky, uncomfortable in your own skin, heart racing, armpits working over time) The first factor is by putting too much emphasis on the event itself. The higher the expectations, the worse the effect of the imaginary audience. If every event with other unmarrieds is your "last chance" at love then you are defeated before you start. Nothing makes a person more nervous than hoping for too much in a given interaction. It makes us hyper sensitive to any comment, action or inaction instead of being relaxed and being ourselves. It is good to be "aware" of interesting people and interactions by slowing down and just be.
A way to help lower your expectations and hold off the sweaty is factor number two, is that when we are not spending much time in social situations, it can affect our perspective, you know, make us a little too amped up. This is the classic guy thing. A guy spends lots of time doing guy things with guys or being alone in his man cave. When he gets the itch to find someone, it has probably been a long time so he goes to an event and is really nervous about it or puts too much emphasis on the event. Why? Because he is not used to very much just plain old normal interaction with women. The same can be said with women, being around unmarried guys more often can lower your expectation level of what is going to happen. So I say get out there and meet people, just to meet people.
I can remember when I was going to start going to a singles group at this Church. I felt very weird because 1. I had been married before, 2. I was probably one of the oldest 3. I had not had lots of purely social interaction with women on a regular basis. So I approached the meetings as reserved, kept to myself, allowed opportunities to come to me for a bit. Totally not how I really am, but it was necessary at the time for me to become more comfortable. The problem is most people stay in that "it's not me" phase and don't transition out. Or they go nuts and are way too much of themselves. You see, the greatest obstacle to meeting people is...YOU. We will talk more about it in my next post.
Shawn
I am a Relationship Coach, I know I can help you or one of your friends. Email me Shawn@coachingthrough.com, lets talk!
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