One aspect of the disorder is its social cost to both me and my family. Not only does my wife suffer from my reluctance to engage with a potentially wide variety of friends (she’s from South America, where everyone knows tons of people), but some kinds of social encounters are actually painful.

Yesterday’s events are a case in point. I have a friend (actually, one of my only friends) who is a successful banker and works in sales. Socially, he is the exact opposite of me; outgoing, gregarious, and an avid sports fan. He plays, or can play everything: tennis and golf are his favorites - especially golf, as he travels to hotels all over the world to golf with his girlfriend. At home, his TV is always on with some game like rugby or tennis in play.

Besides the above, we have some similarities; both of us are nearly the same age; we both spent years at boarding school at around high school age. We’re both interested in the same topics, etc.

He and his girlfriend are successful at what they do and know a lot of other people. Whenever I’m around them (especially with my wife) I feel a kind of inferiority, and am always somewhat surprised when they contact us to “hang out” together. What do they see in us? I’m not successful at what I do, my wife is a housewife… we have a beautiful daughter who is great at all she does (being a high academic achiever). I guess the preceding are our “qualities” but certainly my job doesn’t lead me to meet all kinds of people like theirs does. When they’re with us, they can describe their personal lives in a way we can’t. We certainly don’t travel all over the world to meet other people and play sports.

Yesterday they invited us over to their house for a weekend afternoon for a drink and some talk. We were greeted warmly at the door and at first I felt comfortable. My daughter sat on the couch and watched TV (being too young to participate in adult conversations of course). My wife and I drank prosecco with them and we all caught up on our lives.

But then the familiar, uncomfortable feeling sets in. The couple goes to the Viennese ball every year to dress up and hobnob with other socially successful people. As they showed us pictures from the ball, I began realizing how comparatively poor our own social existence was, and how much I let down my wife with my own disorders. This discomfort, a feeling of being ill at ease, manifests itself in social awkwardness. People pick up on this easily and there’s no way to hide it. Their own behavior begins to reflect my own, which lends a quality of discomfort to the air.

The authentic “you”

“The world needs more ‘you,’ not less,” say the psychologists to avoidants. While the world is full of good and well-meant advice, it’s clearly not easy for a small subset of people afflicted with a mental disorder. However, after all my years of denial, covering up my feelings, and pretending to be someone else, I must admit to the ultimate wisdom of being authentically yourself in all social situations. It can suck, believe me, but those, my dear reader, are only feelings. Surely my friend wouldn’t invite a bunch of morons into his home to cast a disappointing spell over everything.

Now, my sentiments may sound optimistic (and I’m a pessimistic person), but how does it all work in practice? Just be “myself,” … mm hm. However you do that.

My friend and his girlfriend actually have no problem with being themselves. God knows, their lives aren’t perfect either. He recently bought the house for a high price and invited his girlfriend to move in with him. She gives few signs of wanting to actually settle down (i.e., get married), having kept her lease on her old apartment and criticizing him openly. (Actually, I’d hate to be him being together with her.) My friend had recently gotten over a divorce (from a marriage that lasted exactly a month) when he met this new girlfriend and it wouldn’t be surprising to hear that she moves out to be with someone else.

But yesterday in the late afternoon we sat on his porch and drank beer and talked about random things. One was an American series he had watched (“Last Chance U”) and how impressed he was by the academic adviser’s Herculean task of corraling kids into turning in homework assigments, studying for tests, etc., in order to get into a good university with their sports skills. Though I hadn’t watched the series, we could both relate to the kind of scenario described by the show (not that we were those underprivileged kids). I guess this has something to do with being myself?

When I imagine being authentically myself in social situations, I believe it means not purposefully covering up one iota of my memories, or being, while interacting with people. I have a tendency to deny myself when around people, and not to let certain memories from the past, or certain thoughts, bubble to the fore, for fear of feeling humiliated or humiliating someone else (my interlocutor for instance). I engage in this behavior because during my entire childhood I was constantly getting punished, being reprimanded at home and in school, for sudden outbursts of misbehavior and disobedience.

As an adult, I will suddenly humiliate someone, which causes that relationship to be suddenly broken. Through all this I guess you can see why I think my true self (“core” - as opposed to “shell” - as I wrote in another post) is dangerous to me and my relationships.

Ironically though it seems that my misbehavior as an adult (i.e., uncontrolled utterances of words that may hurt others) is linked to my very suppression of those thoughts and inner feelings. Trying to play a role and trying to be someone else suddenly causes some incongruency to bubble up, without my ability to control it (my mind tends to operate faster than I can consciously think).

The games we play

What do I mean by playing a role? It’s not Shakespeare but rather the assumption of a persona I grew up with: the dutiful son, the son of a successful father, etc. I can’t describe them exactly, but I’ve caught myself adopting a persona in various social situations over the decades. I thought a persona would help but it’s actually counterproductive and leads to stylized behavior on my part that actually suppresses my own humanity.

Yesterday was one of the few times in my life when I didn’t try to play a game. It led to acknowledgement of some painful feelings of inferiority, making me question my entire strategy of trying to be the “real me” or whatever that means. But most of all (and this was the painful part), I asked questions in that environment such as: what do they see in me/us? Answering this question implies the entire social game is a kind of balance sheet of assets and liabilities, with a final, net figure needing to match the other’s net figure in order for us to be true peers.

Does my net balance need to match that of others’, in terms of strengths and weaknesses, achievements and failures? Certainly in social clubs this is undoubtedly so. Membership is based on being at a certain “level” and those not fulfilling the requirements aren’t welcome.

But I don’t see how it should in normal, everyday relationships. I can see now that trying to heal from a lifelong affliction means exposing myself constantly, a tiring exercise necessitating not only courage but the skills of an experienced practioner of meditation to keep focused on what’s important and to avoid getting distracted by habits of escape into personas and even fantasties.