A Bit of Optimism - Why Awkward is Awesome with psychologist Ty Tashiro

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

Awkwardness gets a bad rap, but the trait is often an indicator that someone is extraordinary.  Psychologist and author Ty Tashiro has spent a great deal of time studying (and living!) social awkwardness. He's fascinated by how the same traits that cause us social embarrassment can also drive exceptional accomplishment. As a fellow awkward person myself, I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation with Ty about the advantages of being awkward, what the socially fluent can learn from awkward people, and the best way to navigate conversations in loud clubs.This...is A Bit of Optimism.For more on Ty and his work check out: His book: AWKWARD: The Science of Why We're Socially Awkward and Why That's Awesome.tytashiro.com 

There are all different kinds of people in this world. Some are socially fluent, they can walk into a room, they can make friends, they can meet people. And there are others who are, well, awkward. I am one of those awkward ones, which is why I was so excited to talk to Tai Tashiro. He's a psychologist who studies social awkwardness. In fact, he wrote a whole book about it. It's called Awkward, the science of why we're socially awkward and why that's awesome. And it turns out there are actually some huge advantages to being socially awkward. So much so that socially fluent people might actually learn something from us socially awkward people.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you. This conversation is at times a little bit awkward. But it's also awesome. This is a bit of optimism. Ty, I've never introduced a guest this way before, but I am so glad that you exist. Well, thank you. That's a really nice way to start off. I am this person that you study and write about. I am and have always been awkward. I am and have always been awkward. My girlfriend would make fun of me, but lovingly. She always admired that we would go to a party, for example. We were at a social event. And I had no idea how

to insert myself into a conversation, how some people can just sidle up to a conversation and just join in. And it's not awkward or weird or anything. And I'd never known how to do that. And so what I do is I stand in the middle of the room or to the side, but sometimes in the middle, completely by myself, holding my drink, just watching everybody. And weirdly, I'm totally comfortable doing it. But my God, it's awkward for everybody else. And it's awkward for me too. But I've just gotten used to it. I know exactly what you're talking about, Simon. So you're in good company today. What's your journey? How did you start studying awkwardness? Well, I guess real life experience, if we go all the way back.

So I was a super awkward kid. I mean, I'm still awkward now, kind of recovered awkward or well-coped awkward, I guess. But yeah, gosh, if you knew me when I was a kid, especially at junior high is awkward for everybody, of course. For me, it was particularly difficult and bewildering. That's kind of where it all began was just with life. And then I had some friends who had moved to new cities. And this was like 2014, I think. then I had some friends who had moved to new cities. And this was like 2014. I think a lot of my friends who had moved just happened to be socially awkward. And one of the things I like to do is go visit people when they're new to a city. It's

always a hard thing to do. And I'd go visit these friends. I'd watch them at parties or bars or whatever else. I'd stand there holding a drink, sometimes on the side or in the middle. And they would start talking to somebody new. And it would just be heartbreaking, because they'd be awkward. And the other person would excuse themselves politely, I gotta go get a drink, or I gotta go do something they really didn't have to do. And I got to say, it just really broke my heart because I thought these were all really great people who were super interesting, tremendous character. It's really tough to watch them struggle socially. But then I thought it's too bad for the other person, too, because they made a two or three minute decision on whether they wanted to be interested in this person or not.

And now they're missing out on one of the most interesting people they could possibly become friends with. So that was where it all started was just this empathic pain for my friends. Yeah. But then also thinking, gosh, why aren't other people more understanding of where the awkward person is coming from? And it kind of led to this question for me. I thought, you know, maybe if socially awkward people could skip the first five minutes of conversation, they'd actually be all right. Because it's the small talk and the minutiae that they really struggle with. Yes, yes, yes. I struggled with small talk. I struggled with minutiae. Dating, for years, dating was awful because I didn't know how to, like, the awkwardness at the beginning. And then I find myself overcompensating, you know?

What's the correlation between extroversion, introversion, and awkwardness? Or is there none? You're just either, you know, awkward and shy or awkward and outgoing. Well, that turns out to be very interesting, Simon, because there is a small correlation between awkwardness and introversion, but it's not as strong as you would think it would be. And in fact, you do have people who are really awkward and super extroverted, that kind of uncontrolled extroversion where you're a little too much and overwhelming for other folks if you don't moderate it. This is interesting. I've always liked Susan Cain's definition of introversion and extroversion,

which is about energy. Introverts lose energy being social and extroverts gain energy being social. Put another way, an introvert wakes up in the morning with five coins and every social interaction they have, they spend a coin and by the end they're depleted. And an extrovert wakes up with no coins, every social interaction they have,

they get a coin. By the end, they feel rich. Yes. Yes, exactly. And to your point, it's not about social awkwardness. There are socially awkward introverts and socially unawkward introverts. And there are socially awkward extroverts and socially unawkward extroverts. So what I appreciate is that you're defining this new category, what I appreciate is that you're defining this new category, this new thing called awkwardness. So the people who aren't awkward, what should we be studying in them? Is this innate or is there a skill that they have that even though it may not be innate for me, that I can actually practice it and get better? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So these non-awkward folks, I like to call them

socially fluent. And yes, awkward folks can learn a tremendous amount. And one of the secrets, I think- I may not get fluent, but I can be somewhat conversational. That's right. That's right. And you could even fool people, right? So you're proficient, let's say, but you catch people in the right situation on the right day. And they're like, hey, you're, you're doing great. For example, I'm sure you get this all the time. If you tell people that you're that you're awkward, people might have seen your public facing side. And that's all they know about you. And then there's almost this disbelief, like Simon, you're not, you're not awkward. You're like, no, I actually really am at my core. But when it comes to say something like public speaking, you learned the skills and you honed

them to such a degree that it would actually be hard for people to know that you're awkward. And I have to say, when people say, oh, Simon, how can you be socially awkward? You stand on the stage, blah, blah, blah. But what they forget is that, first of all, when I'm on the stage, I'm not talking to anybody and I'm not interacting, you know? But when I come off the stage, people do all the talking at me. Oh, I love what you said. That was great. And I just stand there saying thank you or answering questions, but I'm actually not having to come up with anything, you know? That's right. So it actually makes my life actually a lot easier, weirdly,

you know? My social awkwardness has been mitigated. Absolutely. You know, and you have quite a bit of control in that scenario, right? The public speaking, you can actually prepare for that and have some control over that. When it comes to people asking you questions, you'll get new ones that you haven't heard before, but you know your material. And so you're the kind of the subject matter expert. And that's the way it goes for observing socially fluent people. I always tell socially fluent folks, awkward people are watching you, you know, and hopefully it's not in a creepy kind of way. But I know certainly when I was a kid, I would observe people I respected for their social

skill and how they interacted with others. And we'd just study how they greeted people, how they responded, how they held their posture. And then in a privacy of my own home, you know, would practice, actually practice some of these things so I could try to gain some of that skill. What were some of the things that you practiced so you could gain those skills? What are some of the specific things that you practice? A lot of things. One thing was personal space. My default assignment is to stand too far away from people. So in the United States, it's about 18, 19 inches of personal space is just about right. I'd stand about 24 inches away, which makes you feel oddly distant and it's kind of uncomfortable.

And so, yeah, I would watch even how close people stood to other folks. I have a hard time with eye contact by nature. And I would watch how long do they make eye contact when they look away. So they're not bearing into somebody's soul all the time. Where do they look to? How long do they look away? And I would kind of get that rhythm from social learning and then practice it. And it's a little awkward as you're acquiring the skills, but I guess it worked to a certain extent. I mean, it's kind of like riding a bicycle, right? There's hyper-awareness to start. You're like, keep pedaling, keep pedaling, keep pedaling. And then at some point it becomes more natural. So as you're practicing these skills,

there's hyper-awareness, which in itself is awkward for you, like counting how many seconds you're staring at someone's eyes. But to your point, what's the range of appropriateness? Because I catch myself sometimes having a conversation with somebody and I realize I'm looking everywhere except at them. So it's 3.1 seconds for the record. 3.1 on, a second off. You can look wherever you want, it turns out. So 3.1 on, one off. 3.1 on, one off. That's right. Awkward people tend to love detail. So I said, don't fuss about the 0.1. Right. But yeah, about three to one ratio. And it's interesting what you say about finding yourself looking anywhere but the person's eyes.

There's actually some research on this where they can do eye tracking studies and actually watch where people are looking when they're looking at somebody's face. One of the things they find with socially awkward people is that compared to socially fluent people who reflexively look at the eye region, because the eyes contain actually the most social information, awkward people reflexively look to the chin or to the ear, which have much less social information. But what it seems to do is it makes the social interaction less overwhelming, less emotionally overwhelming. And so it's a way to kind of bring down the intensity of the interaction for the awkward person. By the way, just a quick aside, I can't help but realize that for some people

listening to this, this is an extremely awkward conversation. That's right. I feel like we're on the same wavelength here if someone's not on that wavelength we've lost them we've lost them they've gone they're listening to something else they've moved on this is for all the awkward people that's right well we can do a demographic study to what our list you know we'll see how many people listen to the episode and we can make an unscientific assessment of how many awkward people are because they stuck with it. So here's an interesting question, which is why are people awkward? In the realm of evolution, you want the stronger person, the smarter person to be the one who's procreating. And the social person, the socially fluent person is more likely to be sort of have an alpha status and sort of get the better mate.

And so the two socially fluent people will procreate. For social animals, being socially fluent has got to be helpful. So how did awkward people survive evolution? Like why are we awkward? Why is there awkwardness? It's kind of a miracle we're still here. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really interesting lens through which to look at the awkwardness and where it comes from, right? And along with your hypothesis, I think it's really interesting that awkwardness shows pretty strong heritability. So in boys, for example, it's about 53% heritable, and girls, about 39% heritable. So there is a significant genetic component there, which suggests it's being passed down through generations.

It's not really clear yet. It's not a slam dunk why awkward people would have not been selected out at some point. But one thought is this. There's this curious and strong correlation between social awkwardness and what researchers call extraordinary achievement or striking talent. So, you know, people who achieve amazing things in this world, things that are kind of at the tail end of the bell curve, they're actually more likely to be awkward. And the reason for that is this obsessive interest in things. And so awkward people really love what they love to the point that they get obsessed with it. They become obsessed with the details and the minutiae

and then trying to put those pieces together in different ways. As an example, I heard a great anecdote from a friend of mine from his wife. She said, hey, one day I walked in and he had taken apart the toaster and it was just laying there in pieces on the counter. And I said, what are you doing? Is it broken? And he just said, no, I was just really interested in how the pieces worked and how this thing operates as a whole. And that's kind of like the awkward person when they really love something, they'll just really get into it and obsess about it. But that obsessiveness then translates into persisting through kind of hard times and challenges, and then also eventually getting to a point where they can achieve something that's really pretty exceptional. That's so interesting. So when I ask why evolutionarily would an awkward person

even make it, it's because there are huge advantages. It's not just social, that there are huge advantages that we need the awkward people in our society because of their obsession. And I assume that they're also the observers. Yes, exactly. The awkward person can be super valuable because they are seeing the world in a different kind of way. And they are seeing it in this more bottom-up kind of way. And what happens then is you might put those pieces together in a way that nobody else would. And that can lead to creativity or innovation. And that gives diversity to a group's thinking, but can also then, of course, we're talking about evolution, add resources because they'll see new ways or better ways to do things. Yeah. This is so interesting. And it also explains the

self-flagellation and the insecurity that sometimes come from being awkward is because we are equally hyper-focused on ourselves. And because we actually have a means of comparison, right? Like I've been watching other people and I know how they conduct themselves, and I'm not conducting myself that way. I've observed the socially fluent and I'm being socially un-fluent and I'm aware of that. And that I think is the source of the, unfortunately, a self even more awkwardness. Yeah, that's right. Trying to overcome the previously awkward thing sometimes leads to even a more awkward situation. I think the other thing is, and I think it's worth parsing out, which is there's no correlation, or I'm assuming there's no correlation between socially awkward and insecure. Does your research bear that out?

Yes, you're exactly right. So there doesn't have to be a correlation between your self-esteem and you being socially awkward. be a correlation between your self-esteem and you being socially awkward. If, yeah, if you just have some self-awareness about it, people kind of appreciate the straightforwardness. It's like, oh, well, that actually took a little extra confidence to come in hot with, hey, I'm an awkward person. And I think people kind of appreciate that. It takes a while sometimes. And so like with teenagers, for example,

they might have a bit of a lower self-esteem and it's kind of understandable because they are struggling more. And in some instances, like the awkward kids getting picked on or something, which doesn't help. But yeah, the ideal Simon would be to get to where, yeah, you just have good self-awareness and you own it. Oh, that's a great question, which is all little kids have no awkwardness.

Like little kids have no inhibitions, no awkwardness. They see the world through the rosiest color lenses, you know, and then adolescence sets in and all the awkwardness shows up. We look awkward. We sound awkward. We act awkward, you know, and then for some of us, the awkwardness shows up. We look awkward, we sound awkward, we act awkward, you know, and then for some of us, the awkwardness remains at higher levels. And for some of us, it dilutes and dissipates. The question I have is, why do we get awkward in adolescence at all? Like, if we weren't awkward as little kids, why the transition into awkwardness where there's

more awkwardness amongst adolescent kids than not? There's a couple of things there. You know, so awkward moments are just deviations from relatively minor social expectations. If it's a violation of a major expectation, like trust, for example, then you're in a different realm of emotional reaction to that. An unzipped zipper or spinach in your front teeth, not a big deal, really, right? But those are certainly awkward kinds of moments. What happens when you get to adolescence

is things obviously start to change very quickly. So that could be physical kind of stuff, but also mentally you get this surge of abstract reasoning and you're interested in popularity and abstract things like that. And so there's all these new expectations. All of a sudden, I got to be fashionable. All of a sudden, I'm much shorter than everybody else who's going through their growth spurt. There's all these things where there's a gap between expectations and your ability to meet those social expectations. And I think that's why

in junior high school, for example, it just feels awkward for a lot of folks. I'm loving this. So what I love about this, which is it's awkwardness you're defining, and I love this definition, which is it's not quite meeting a social expectation, right? And so I'll tell you a strategy that I've learned that has been extremely beneficial to me, And so I'll tell you a strategy that I've learned that has been extremely beneficial to me, right? Because to your point, in a social interaction, in a bar, at a party, at all these things, there's an expectation of sociability and some degree of social fluency that an awkward person really struggles with. The small talk, all of that stuff, which I do. the small talk, all of that stuff, which I do. And so one strategy is to really, really, really, really work hard on your social fluency so you can be good in those environments. The strategy that I've adopted is to avoid those environments, which is I go into... But your point about

meeting social expectations, which is I go into environments where the social expectations are different. So an environment where there's a small group of people, a dinner table with two or three people has a different social expectation than a party or a bar or a social event. You can sit quietly at a table for quite much longer without being viewed as awkward, Or you can interact now and then or allow somebody else to carry the conversation without being awkward. So what I really like is understanding what the expectations are. I think we should all work harder to be better versions of ourselves and be prepared for all scenarios, of course. But there's something to be said for not beating yourself up when you're bad in a place where the expectations are one. You can change where the expectations are and put yourself in a place where you're just going to be said for not beating yourself up when you're bad in a place where the expectations are one, you can change where the expectations are and put yourself in a place where you're just

going to be naturally better. Yes. Yeah. Oh, love that. Love that point. Love that strategy. Because some of the unhelpful advice I hear folks give to awkward people is, well, just put yourself out there. You know, just go to the party, just go to the club, go to the nightmare scenario where you're not gonna do well, basically. And what you're saying is, hey, I'm gonna try to set myself up for success by putting myself in social environments

where I can thrive and it's better suited to my preferences and my skills. So yeah, absolutely love that. I mean, one of the things I've just observed in our short interaction here is like you're a naturally curious person and in a smaller group setting with one or two people, and that would be the kind of trait

that would really thrive because you'd be, yeah, hey, tell me more about this thing that you're thinking about or that you're interested in, which is really the key to a great social interaction, period. And so, yeah, by you putting yourself in the ideal environment, that's really one of the best things you can do. I'm gaming the system. Yes, exactly. And you've also given yourself permission to let go of, you know, kind of forcing yourself to be in situations that you don't enjoy or that,

that aren't good for you. And, you know, if there's loud music and I can't actually have a conversation, I literally shut down. I can't do it. I'll walk into a place and if the music is too loud for me to engage with somebody, I will leave, you know? Yeah. Cause it's not going to go well. There's just nothing I can do in this space. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no. I'm the same. And so these little shortcuts to like, you know, I can just walk into a space and if it's not too loud, even if it's a social environment, I'll figure it out. But if it's extremely loud, I'm gone.

No, no. Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like too, like you're interested in getting the other person talking. If the other person talks two thirds of the time, you talk one third of the time, they will always walk away thinking you're the coolest, nicest dude around because they got to talk about themselves and you were genuinely interested in what they had to say.

So I think sometimes awkward people put the pressure on themselves to perform, but it's actually really getting the other person to perform, which sounds like your mindset in these interactions. When it works. Sometimes I think I have to perform and that's when it falls flat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you get two awkward people and the other awkward person is that real super shy type. That's happened to me where I've seen in a social environment where there's lots of people, party club, whatever. And there's one guy standing on the side, like I know he's struggling. I know

he feels alone. I know he doesn't know what he's doing. And so I'd be like, all right, I'm going to, I'm going to try and sort of like throw this poor, poor guy a lifeline. I've been there and I'll walk up and, and I, and again, cause I'm complete crap at small talk. I'll walk up and be like, hi, how you doing? You know, you okay? And he'll go, yeah, I'm good. And then the two of us stand there in complete silence. And awkward, awkward,

you know, awkward plus awkward is really awkward. And we're both feeling it until one of us goes, okay, and just walks away. You know?

And I've sometimes been on the receiving end of that and I've sometimes been on the giving end of that. But an awkward person will struggle to rescue an awkward person. Now you're both drowning. Yeah, it's not a good scenario. We've talked about what we awks can learn from socially fluent people and how we can better improve for all the good reasons you know it's helpful to be socially fluent in a social

world what can socially fluent people learn from awkward people one of the things i think for folks to know in general is that socially awkward people are just as kind. They are just as trustworthy. They have all the stuff that actually really matters in a close relationship. Awkward people have. And I think one of the things that's a bonus is that awkward people a lot of times have an empathy for what it's like to be misunderstood yeah or they have an empathy for what it's like to to struggle in an interpersonal situation and one of the things i just really warms my heart i guess is to see the awkward person notice somebody who's struggling whereas the socially fluent person might not because they're,

you know, not paying attention to some of the details. And one of the things I love is, you know, the awkward person taking the time to really help folks along who might be struggling. And so I think one of the things socially fluent people can learn from awkward folks is to slow down sometimes and think about, hey, is everyone doing well here and what can I do to be helpful? I think one of the other things that awkward people do well, that socially fluent people oftentimes can learn something from is just their determination and their persistence. Just their determination and their persistence. When I'm talking to an awkward person and I find that thing that they're passionate about and that they're obsessed about, I just love hearing about their passion for it, but I also love hearing how they work on it. And there's this discipline that can sometimes tip into rigidity, but there's this discipline and there's this persistence, especially through difficult parts, that I think is really admirable. Yeah, yeah.

Can you tell me a specific story about something you were involved in over the course of your professional career, a project you were involved in, something like that? But something that you absolutely loved being a part of, that if every one of your projects was like this one thing, you'd be the happiest person alive. Hmm. Yeah, I had a recent experience. I was working with a psychedelic pharmaceutical company, and they wanted to build this technology tool to understand why psychedelics seem to work for things like depression or addiction. And one of the things I loved about that environment is the guy I worked with most closely was the chief technology officer. He was one of my favorite people I've ever worked with, and he only wanted to meet every two weeks, which I liked. And he'd always start with the same question, which just exemplifies what I think I enjoyed about the situation.

He would always say, hey, Ty, what can I do to remove the barriers to let you do your best possible work? And that was really all he was interested in doing. And I think the times I've really loved whatever it is I'm doing, whether it's something about social awkwardness or technology tool or whatever it might be, is I just love the problem. I just love a big, nasty problem. And I love obsessing then about figuring out the details of that and trying to come up with something that's maybe creative or different. And I think finding the freedom to do that in this modern age is pretty hard to do. Yeah. Give me an early specific happy childhood memory, something specific I can relive with you.

Yeah. I guess the thing that comes to mind right now that was actually kind of a big deal was I was in California with my dad. We were just kind of taking a boy's trip, the two of us. with my dad. We were just kind of taking a boy's trip, the two of us. And my aunt had very generously given me $50. She said, Hey, just, just spend this on on whatever you want sometime. And I said, Okay. So my dad loved clothes. So we went out did a lot of clothes shopping. And there was this is 80s style rainbow jacket that I loved. It had the stripe down the middle. It was kind of this parka. It was like $45.

My dad expected to pay for it. It was like school clothes shopping or whatever. I actually took it when he wasn't looking. He was looking at something else. I went and I paid for it with the money my aunt had given me. And when my dad kind of saw what I'd done, he just started crying. He like broke down in tears. I did something awkward, like I had upset him or something like that. And he just says, I'm so proud of you for

just wanting to be fair and do your part. And that's the most important thing in life, Ty, is just that it's not about the money. It's just that you're thoughtful about being fair with people and being generous with people as much as you're able. My dad was a man of few words. So I remember that really meant a lot to me. And it was also kind of, at the time, I think I was in fifth grade, starting to feel like, hey, maybe I can be my own person and do some things on my own. You know what's interesting about that story, but also all of your work, which is you really care about self-reliance and giving people the tools to be self-reliant. And as a kid, it was the $50 that gave you self-reliance to make a decision to get something you wanted and not to have to ask or rely. And your awkwardness work,

which is to give people the tools that they don't have to lean on someone or rely on someone, but that they know enough and they understand the strengths of being awkward that they can thrive in life without having to be something that they're not. And I just love that you have this, And I just love that you have this, and you said it's a very generous way of going through life. And it's like in all of your work, you have kind of become that CTO at the psychedelics company, you know, which is what can I give to you so that you can be your most successful? And that's exactly what your relationship work is. That is exactly what your awkwardness work is. What can I give to you so that you can be your most successful? And I love that.

I love that about you. I really appreciate that. That's one of the nicest things I've heard in quite some time. So yeah, if I can do that for folks, I think for me, at least, that's what it's all about. You know, this is the funny thing about being awkward, which is as a kid, it caused me great distress. Now as an adult, like I said, standing at the party, sitting at the bar by myself, it just doesn't bother me anymore. Yeah, same. I'm fully aware it's weird, but whatever.

I still don't like going to those kind of places because it puts me in a position of weakness. But I wouldn't say I'm not fluent at all, but I can order off a menu. You know what I mean? Yes. I can be a tourist. I can be a competent tourist. Ty, thank you so much for coming on, sharing your research, sharing your work, sharing your magic. In a very awkward way, I have to say this is very cathartic.

Well, I'm glad. I'm glad. I really enjoyed the conversation as well. And yeah, we can get on the same wavelength pretty easy. Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Simon.

If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts. And if you'd like even more optimism, check out my website, simonsenic.com for classes, videos, and more. Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.