Re: Confidence, Delusion, and the Gray Matter Inbetween

[Enail]

Where I'm from, it's not like it would be weird to do it, it happens occasionally, especially if you have a fairly flamboyant or unique style. But it's rare enough that it seems extremely strange to me to assume that not having strangers say anything about your clothes means they don't look good.

[reboot]

Where I'm from, it's not like it would be weird to do it, it happens occasionally, especially if you have a fairly flamboyant or unique style. But it's rare enough that it seems extremely strange to me to assume that not having strangers say anything about your clothes means they don't look good.

Cosign this. I have seen it happen occasionally when someone is wearing something out of this world different/eye catching/unique, but it is rare enough that I can probably count the times I have seen it on my hands. This could be a regional variation, because I have lived on both coasts and in the West (plus assorted other countries) but never Midwest.

I definitely agree that not hearing compliments from strangers=/= not looking good

[Mel]

Yeah, I would say getting compliments from strangers means you're looking especially good, and that not getting compliments only means you didn't happen to cross paths with someone who tends to compliment strangers, nothing about your actual clothes.

[kath]

Hey RBS - I have another question - when you were confident and non-paranoid, can you go into detail about what happened and how you were feeling? Why were you feeling confident? What did you do that showed that? What did people say or do in response (both what they said - calling you too loud, etc, but also what happened around that)?

I'm also having trouble like imagining that and feel like i don't understand what was up there at all, so I can't talk about that ...

I am also generally pretty self-doubting, and I often give totally unreasonable people who criticize me more mental energy than I'd like to. Reasonable criticism sometimes bothers me, and sometimes I'm just like "great, thanks, I will incorporate that, much appreciated!" - and I don't always have a good handle on what was reasonable, what was unreasonable, and whether my responses matched up well. So I feel you there.

But I happen to not have this problem with fashion in particular. I certainly did when I was younger, but in about grade 12 I basically discovered makeup and dressing sort of like a goth without being particularly gothy in any other way (and still wearing my tinkerbelle t-shirt) ... and I got a bit of flack for it (mostly from adults, though not my parents) ... and I actually didn't get a lot of attention for it in that last year of high school, but it did make a transition where I decided to look how I wanted to look and stop worrying about anyone else's opinion other than "you're rocking it". In university, I used this to cope with other insecurities.  I wore crazy eye makeup so that when people did look at me, I could assume they were looking at that rather than making other judgements about me. I didn't even care if they liked the makeup, because I liked it and it was such a statement that I could put anyone else's dislike down to personal taste pretty easily.

Now that I don't wear as much makeup, and have a job and like wear unremarkable clothes more often, people looking at me does freak me out again. Being dressed to the nines always makes me more comfortable, the more I stick out the better. It's just so easy if people hate your look and you think your look is awesome. That's about the easiest judgement in the world to dismiss out of hand. It's just so trivial.

Like, I have an undercut, and one of the ladies at my church said "I normally hate that haircut, you're the only person I've seen who I like it on" - I didn't mind that she didn't like my haircut, and right now it's pretty trendy so people can dislike from either side, but that's totally OK, I didn't get that haircut for her, and I also didn't get it to be countercultural. I just like it and I think it suits me. Moreover, I think the only reason she likes it on me is that she knows me, so any other associations with the haircut are undercut by the context in which she knows me.

So that tends to be why my general fashion advice is "don't ask for permission, and don't beg for forgiveness either," just do what you like, the louder the better. It's also just about the only way in which I am confident enough to shoot first and ask questions later, so I'm slowly trying to apply that to other parts of my social interactions.

However, I do think there are some things about the way I look that might make it easier for me to get away with stuff, and that other people may not have the experience I do with this ... I am pretty like "cute" (I look about 12), so weird fashion choices I make are very unlikely to be threatening in any way.

[reboundstudent]

Hey RBS - I have another question - when you were confident and non-paranoid, can you go into detail about what happened and how you were feeling? Why were you feeling confident? What did you do that showed that? What did people say or do in response (both what they said - calling you too loud, etc, but also what happened around that)?

Sure. Usually what me feeling confident looks like is I'm not constantly double-checking my behaviors and pinging my own head space so much. I'm usually talkative, louder (Not to talk over-just a naturally loud person. I stand in a theater, talk in a normal voice, and they can hear me in the back rows), and generally just flowing through the interaction. I still try not to mean, but I'm not constantly going "Oh God, I said something about X, are they offended? Are they mad? Did I say something rude? Or creepy? Oh my gosh I'm talking too much, shut up shut up shut up." When I feel confident, I usually feel smiley-snarky and less analytic. It usually stems out of a feeling of "Hurray, I can be myself!"

People don't usually say or do in any particular way, aside from paying attention where previously they ignored me. But they aren't scowling or making mean comments. I don't hear until after the fact if I behaved badly. Sometimes I only hear about it after a "camel's back" situation, where someone will say "God you are always so X!" (Me: Always?...)

Here's a good example. A few years ago, I and my boyfriend got invited to a New Years' dinner party. Both of us lived in Japan for a year, and there was a chunk of time where the two of us were firing off humorous stories about Gaijin life there. People laughed and seemed amused by it, and we both tried hard not to monopolize the conversation... however, none of the couples (there were 8 of us total) seemed particularly interested in talking, so we kind of did a lot of the talking. At the time, I thought that was fine, because any attempt at a question was responded shortly ("Oh you like using bitters in your beer?" "Yeah, they taste good." "What kinds do you like?" "Oh, ya know, the usual.")

Months later, I ran into one of the couples, and while talking, she threw in a comment about "Oh yeah, you were the one who talked a lot."

So part of the reason I feel I can't trust myself when confident is that I don't find out about errors until potentially months later (or ever.)

I am also generally pretty self-doubting, and I often give totally unreasonable people who criticize me more mental energy than I'd like to. Reasonable criticism sometimes bothers me, and sometimes I'm just like "great, thanks, I will incorporate that, much appreciated!" - and I don't always have a good handle on what was reasonable, what was unreasonable, and whether my responses matched up well. So I feel you there.

Yeah, no idea what's reasonable criticize, and what flaws I'm (for lack of a better word) "allowed" to have.

So that tends to be why my general fashion advice is "don't ask for permission, and don't beg for forgiveness either," just do what you like, the louder the better. It's also just about the only way in which I am confident enough to shoot first and ask questions later, so I'm slowly trying to apply that to other parts of my social interactions.

I think that's partially the problem though. If left up to me, I probably would hardly bother with fashion (ironic, how much I love sewing clothes.) In fact, I hardly ever bother now-I rarely go beyond jeans and a very basic knit blouse. I don't have a style that I particularly like on myself. I adjust my style only because I want attention, or I want to fit in better. Any adjustment in my clothes beyond "minimum average" is to try to impress other people. So "doing what I like" literally looks like what I do now, except I'm told by doing what I want, I am not attractive or impressive. (Add to it that I have no idea what looks good on me. None. It never fails, bar none, that when going shopping with other people, I diverge from everyone else. If I like it, everybody else is lukewarm about it. If they love it on me, I hate it. I wonder sometimes if I live in a different dimension than other folks.)

[UristMcBunny]

Huh, the example you gave is interesting to me, because it doesn't sound to me like you did anything wrong at all. In fact, it sounds like you were behaving perfectly appropriately - you might have been monopolising the conversation a little, but you were aware of how much/little other people were talking and you kept asking questions and giving others opportunities to hold forth on their own interests. If anything, you sound like you would've been someone fun to be around. Regardless though, even if you are someone who talks a lot, that's not such a bad thing. My other half has literal verbal diarrhoea after a couple of drinks, to the point that it's a running joke amongst our friends, and people love him for it - because he's incredibly entertaining!

I would say that the "talk a lot" comment in that example is one that, if I'd been on the receiving end of, I'd have laughed off or ignored. I'd either assume the person saying so meant that in a jokey way, albeit very poorly judged, or if it was obviously meant as a criticism I'd figure they weren't my type of people, then. Now, whether that'd make me delusional or merely confident I don't know. But I know I'd rather be around people who appreciate the quirks of my personality than around ones I need to walk on eggshells for.

[reboundstudent]

I would say that the "talk a lot" comment in that example is one that, if I'd been on the receiving end of, I'd have laughed off or ignored.  I'd either assume the person saying so meant that in a jokey way, albeit very poorly judged, or if it was obviously meant as a criticism I'd figure they weren't my type of people, then.  Now, whether that'd make me delusional or merely confident I don't know.  But I know I'd rather be around people who appreciate the quirks of my personality than around ones I need to walk on eggshells for.

True, but again, I always wonder what's a "quirk" and what's a "flaw." We as posters and the folks over at Captain Awkward frequently decimate people over what, in some circles, are "quirks." For example, the Captain had a letter from a guy whose girlfriend proclaimed "You should care less about people think (about me)", and the comments were fairly harsh, citing that line as evidence that the LW's gf was a jerk with no empathy.

I also have yet to run into folks who appreciate my "quirks." So doesn't that kind of make my quirks (like talking too loudly and too much) problematic, if it makes no one like me?

[kath]

I agree, with that interaction, I think you were probably pretty engaging that evening. I'm not sure whether "oh yeah, you talked a lot" was meant to be a dig - did she say anything else that sounded like veiled meanness? That night, it sounds like you did talk a lot. As far as you've mentioned, she didn't say "you talked a lot and I disliked listening to you" - or anything about the content of what you said at all, so no reason to construe that as a particular criticism. Did she say anything dismissive about the content of what you said, like being tired or living abroad stories? I think you can just assumed that she noticed you had a lot to say. Until someone says "Marty, you talked so much last night that I couldn't get a word in edgewise! How could you not have noticed that I started sentences and then got cut off?!" I think you're just having a lot of stuff to say and saying it. Also in group discussions, when I've been the one having a hard time getting a word in edgewise, often other people will notice that and sometimes do things to draw the other person's attention to the fact that I want to talk. You would have to have been really oblivious to not notice that, and you said you were trying to make sure you didn't, so I think you didn't. It wasn't criticism, just a clumsily-phrased observation.

Also, I think something that's a sort of "unobserved side of being cool and engaging" for people who don't get a lot of attention is that people who are cool and talk a lot and engage people ... also get a lot of criticism mixed in with the good things people say. There are a few people in my social circle who know EVERYONE, and people will say "oh yeah, I know so and so - it's so great that they do all this stuff, but sometimes I find them a little [flakey / overpowering / self-important / whatever]." But usually they don't mean "ugh I really hate that person and think they need to do some serious work on their personality", it normally actually means "I'm a bit jealous of them, and want to remind myself that they aren't perfect".

I also think there's a lot to be said for the same advice not working for everyone. There are lots of people that ignore the social cues that should tell them they are steamrolling over others. For them, being more confident in that behavior would be very bad. You already pay a lot of attention to social cues and criticism, perceived or explicit. So catching those nuances isn't your problem, and you don't have to take advice to pay more attention to them the same way someone who blithely ignores them would. You'll always pay attention to them. Your challenge (and mine) is learning how to contextualize and understand them. You're taking advice that isn't for you, both from DNL and from the people in your life. That's not because what their saying is wrong, per se, but it might not be criticism you need, or be criticism in the way you're reading it (or criticism at all).

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