Intimidation

[vvvexation]

I usually hesitate to participate in "say something about me" memes because they feel too much like fishing for compliments, but I think this one actually bleeds over into useful "figure out how I'm coming across to people, and perhaps see if there are any incorrect impressions I could fix" territory.

So...comment either on this entry (where comments will be screened, unless permission given to unscreen) or over here (where they won't be, and possibly lots of strangers will read them), and tell me what you find intimidating about me. If anything. Or hell, you can tell me why I'm not intimidating if you'd rather.

Comments

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Feel free to unscreen.

You are quiet. Quiet people make me nervous, because I never know what they're thinking, or who they are. This applies to most quiet ones, and not just you.

Of course, to think that because someone is loud or vocal, you're actually seeing what's going on in their head, is naive. But, that's the way my mind works.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

*nod* I have been told I'm hard to read; I'm not sure if that's due to the quietness or independent of it.

[adamchristopher.livejournal.com]

Ooh, excellent one. I sooo need to do this, and even borrow what you've said here, if you don't mind. I'm scared to find out though! ha But let's see... I've only met you a few times, and don't know you super well obviously, but I guess what I found intimidating about you at first was how smart you are. I'm always shy and nervous around new people for a minute anyway I think, and when I observed that you are highly intelligent in ways that I am not, like you can converse about stuff that's way over my head, I felt intimidated. But then, I saw you relate to the kitties and realized, "oh. she's not scary." :) And maybe also, that you're not way warm and profusely cheerful right away. But I'm sure that says more about me than it does about you. I'm insecure so I like to be coddled for a minute before I feel safe to relax, and I tend to do that for other people on meeting with out even thinking about it. I usually greet people warmly to try to put them at ease I think, but it's really just an unconscious thing of doing what I want done for myself. So yeah, maybe just the fact that you're cool and casual was intimidating at first, because I couldn't tell if you liked me or not.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

Yeah...the "warm" thing is hard for me, somehow. I can do it in business situations, but when I'm first meeting people socially, I'm hesitant to be overly friendly at random. Now that I think about it, I think part of the reason is that I'm afraid of getting trapped in awkward conversations. Rather than initiate an interaction by greeting someone, it's easier to wait until spoken to, or until a conversation starts up between other people and I can just join in.

Huh. I hadn't previously realized it was a particular kind of social phobia, and not just social phobia in general, that was behind that. Cool, more brain data.