Common Worries Shy Or Insecure People Have

When people who are shy, insecure, or too hard on themselves are in social situations there are some worries they'll commonly have. They may not even be totally aware they're operating on some of these assumptions. Many of these thoughts have various cognitive distortions at their hearts. They also have a general unifying theme of feeling every social interaction must go perfectly or something bad will happen. Here they are:

Generally feeling you're flawed and unlikable

At the center of shyness and insecurity are negative beliefs about yourself. Someone may feel they're too boring, or quiet, or awkward, or nervous. They may also be concerned about the effect their weight, or their crooked teeth, or whatnot has on their social success. They may think one physical feature will shut the door on them ever having a normal life.

I think it's important to be balanced when looking at these worries. It can be unrealistic to say, "No! Everything's fine!" The person's beliefs may have some basis in their social inexperience, or anxiety, or problems they've had in the past. In a way their insecurities are alerting them to issues they need to work on.

On the other hand, there's a big difference between being a little clumsy with people, or not being physically perfect, and being a fundamentally flawed person with no redeeming qualities. Lots of people are a bit awkward around others at times, but they're still likable and have a lot to offer on the whole. Hardly anyone looks like a Greek statue, but we're all capable of having friends anyways. Your worries may be well-intentioned in a way, but they're going over board if they're telling you, "You suck. You're a complete failure. You'll never get what you want, etc etc."

Being too quick to interpret any ambiguous information as negative

You texted your friend and she didn't get back to you right away? She hates you. Invited a friend out and he said he was busy? That's just an excuse. He just thinks you're too lame to be around. Said 'hi' to a friend on campus and they seemed distracted? They couldn't wait to get away from you. You offered your opinion in a group conversation and everyone went quiet for a second? They were all thinking, "Who is this guy? Why is he even here?"

Feeling every interaction is a test of your social skills and likability

This is when you run into your co-worker in the break room and chat to them for three minutes. Except that in your mind you've built up the conversation to be some kind of barometer for how your social skills are coming along, and how worthy you are as a person. If it goes the slightest bit wrong, you're too quick to conclude, "That proves it. I'm hopeless. I suck with people." If everything goes okay you feel like you survived that test, but you can't really rest easy because you could 'fail' the next one.

Feeling one social mistake brands you as a failure for all time

This is when you make one little error, say by not being able to think of a response to a question right away, and your mind instantly jumps to, "She asked me how my weekend was and I stumbled. I'm useless with people. I'll never get better." Again, there's that element of seeing something as 'proof' for a belief that you're bad with other people.

Feeling every social mistake will have horrible consequences

People make mistakes in social situations all the time. Usually they recover from them without any real effects. Even when people do something wrong that is more lasting, others have a good amount of tolerance for those kinds of things. No one's perfect after all. Everyone's friends irk or disappoint them occasionally.

More shy or insecure people can feel that they can't make a single mistake, because if they do they'll be horribly humiliated or rejected for the rest of their days. They also tend to believe that if they make one error, they should throw in the towel because the situation is now beyond repair.

Feeling 100% responsible for other people's reactions

When someone responds to you in a certain way it often says more about them than you. They may not seem like they want to chat with you because their mom is sick, or they just failed an assignment, or because they're just simply a rude person, or because they're shy and uncomfortable themselves. Many people know this and don't take it too personally when a social interaction doesn't go according to plan. That's not to say they don't think about what they could have done better next time, but even the smoothest, most likable person won't be able to win with everyone they talk to.

More socially insecure people can feel that if a person doesn't react well to them then it's all their fault because they did something wrong. If someone seems distracted or bored in a conversation it must be because the shy person is just such a dull, easy to ignore person.

Feeling 100% responsible for how well an interaction goes

More insecure people put too much pressure on themselves. They think that if their social skills were just good enough they would be able to make any interaction go well. They take a situation not going that great as a sign that they personally failed. Of course, the other people in an interaction are responsible for pulling their weight as well. Someone who's an amazing conversationalist could still have a dull interaction if the person they were talking to was in a bad mood and gave them nothing but one word answers.

Like I said, a more insecure person may believe that if their communication skills were at the right level they would be able to pull off a fun conversation with the moody, one-word-answer person. They falsely think socially skilled people have the power to make any interpersonal situation turn out the way they want it to. More secure people tend not to think like this. They'll try their best, but accept that there's only so much they can do from their end. The other person has to contribute as well.

Feeling like you couldn't withstand rejection, disapproval, or awkwardness

A shy person may feel like being rejected or disliked is something they couldn't stand. They may also be worried about situations like an awkward silence during a discussion, or saying something stupid and having the moment hang in the air. They'll fear those outcomes, to the point that they'll feel uncomfortable in social situations or choose to avoid them entirely.

People who have experienced rejection will tell you that it's not totally pleasant, but it's not nearly as bad as they first imagined it would be, and that it's something you can get used to. When people imagine how rejection would play out, it's usually pretty scary. When it actually happens your reaction to it tends to be more mundane and muted. Maybe you'll try to chat to someone outside a class and they brush you off. You'll think, "Uh... ...okay then. Guess they didn't want to talk... hm..."

The other thing is that when someone is actually rejects you badly, your first response is often not to be to feel down on yourself, as you imagine you would, but to be kind of taken aback and think, "Wow! That person is really rude. What was their problem?! I just asked them how their day went." Like I said, it says more about them than you.

Feeling you must make everyone like you

Insecure people can feel like they're unworthy social failures if they don't make everyone they meet like them. More typical people realize they can't click with everyone and don't sweat it too much. Certain personality traits or world views aren't really compatible with other ones. Like it's not realistic to think someone who's a hardcore liberal is going to be able to hit it off with a bunch of extreme conservatives.

Instead your average person tries to be fairly nice to everyone, and realizes a lot people will be benignly indifferent to them, and a tiny handful may actively dislike them. They still end up with a decent enough circle of well-matched friends though. Even when someone doesn't like them, it's not that bad either. How do most people react in real life? They don't get down on themselves. Instead they tend to think, "They don't like me, huh? Hm... well you know what? I don't really like them either. And now that I don't like them, I'm not going to lose any sleep over their opinion of me."

Feeling that you're imposing on other people

When shy people try to initiate some form of social contact with other people, say by trying to join a conversation, or asking them to hang out, they may worry that their request is annoying and inconveniencing the other person. This can lead to them coming across as overly cautious and apologetic. This worry can be rooted in them seeing themselves as unlikable, so of course they think their trying to interact with someone else would be unappreciated. They may also falsely believe that people in general are socially intolerant and easy to irritate, and that interacting with them is a delicate act.

Feeling your social performance has to be at 100% at all times

Most people get to a point where they accept that they're not going to be 'on' all of the time. One day they may go to a party and be in the right mood and manage to work the room and hit it off with everyone. They may go to another get together the next week and just not be feeling it, and not have any of the interactions go that well. It just happens, for all kinds of reasons. It doesn't make or break their entire life.

Shy or insecure people can burden themselves by feeling they have to always be operating at maximum social effectiveness. If they're not perfect they'll beat themselves up for it. They may also feel that anything less than perfection will lead to failure. In reality people can often get by just fine in social situations when they're only running at 50% or so. An insecure person has trouble going into a situation just thinking, "I'm feeling a little quiet and in my head today. Oh well, I'll do the best I can with what I have to work with."

Feeling people have super high standards for what they look for in others

This is another worry related to feeling you have to perform and win people over. It's the idea that other people are very choosy and picky for what they look for in a friend or a conversational partner. You feel you have to be the most interesting, funny, self-assured person around or they'll want nothing to do with you.

Though really, many people aren't like this at all. All they may look for in a friend is someone who seems nice and who they have something in common with. The thing with having friends is that we can have as many of them as we want. It's not like dating where we have to be selective to find that one person who's a good match for us.

Obsessing about how you 'know' you come across to people

This involves the cognitive distortion known as mind reading. Shy or insecure people will often believe certain people don't like them, or find them boring or annoying, without any real evidence to back it up. This view may be based in the thinking of, "Well it's so completely obvious that I'm lame and unlikable, so of course they feel that way." As I mentioned earlier, they may also be too quick to interpret a vague situation as meaning something negative. If their friends sometimes don't invite them out they'll conclude it's because no one wants them around. But maybe a bunch of that person's friends just don't have their cell phone number because they keep changing it.

Feeling everyone else totally has their act together socially

When you feel like you're struggling to keep up in social situations it's easy to conclude that everyone else finds this stuff super easy. They're all effortlessly confident and have a ton of friends. Hilarious jokes just roll off their tongues, then they lean back and soak up all the attention and admiration like they've done it all a million times before. That just makes you feel even worse about how you're doing.

It feels a little corny to say, and it's not like you don't know this too, but everyone has insecurities. That girl who always seem to be the center of attention may be inwardly shy and always wondering if her friends really like her. A guy who always seems to be meeting new people may have spent the last day feeling sorry for himself and wondering why no one wanted to come out when he invited all his friends to the beach for the day.

Looking back on interactions after they've happened and dwelling on mistakes you 'know' you made

Shyer people have a tendency to do post-mortems on their social interactions and then beat themselves up for any errors they felt they made. In line with some of the other insecurities I mentioned, they'll tend to make their mistakes out to be bigger deals than they were, and worry they'll have horrible consequences. So someone who went to a party and made a few drunken, slightly offensive jokes will fret that everyone was really annoyed, and that they've all decided not to hang out with them any more. Though at any party most people do a dumb thing or two, and most of their friends don't give it more than a passing thought.