5. Ask a friend to ask someone to take a picture

I always asked the person I was with if they could ask someone else to photograph us.

You’d never catch me asking a stranger DIRECTLY to take a picture of me and a friend. If it were up to me, I would have always opted for a selfie or put a timer in and lose my camera over the edge. Most of the time, though, I made the person I was with ask a stranger to take our picture.

I couldn’t put myself in that position where I had to:

1. Stop a stranger
2. Ask them to take a picture
3. Hand over my new unpaid phone
4. Walk back
5. Take time to pose properly
6. Get the phone from them
7. Check the picture
8. Acknowledge it’s good
9. Ask for another picture if it sucks
10. Accept the sucky picture
11. Say thank you.

Too many steps, too much involvement, and too much human contact. I stayed at a distance while someone else handled all of that.

I happily did number 6, though.

6. Refuse to call out a mistake

“Bob, I think you misspelled your name, “I probably should have yelled out. 

But I didn’t because I wasn’t particularly eager to put people on the spot. Because that meant I’d be putting myself on the spot.

To make myself feel better for not pointing anything out, I had a whole conversation with Bob in my head, and it went like this:

Sorry, Bob, you’ll have to lead the meeting with your name spelled Boob on the board. I’m not sure what you were thinking there, but it’s not my problem. Just like it’s not my problem that the date is wrong on the report, that you spelled my name wrong, or that I shouldn’t be in this meeting in the first place because you added the wrong Roxana to the meeting.

And so, I sat there, pretending I didn’t notice anything.

7. Not ask questions

I made a video on this, discussing how this was my first struggle.

Asking a question is scary for a socially anxious introvert.

Chances were pretty high that it wouldn’t come out right, which meant I’d sound stupid, and people would roll their eyes. Then life would be over. It usually went like that.

So, it was much better to sit quietly and pray that someone else had the same question and that they actually asked it. I’m not sure what the chances are of that, but I was doing just fine, blazing through life, waiting for someone else to ask my questions.

I couldn’t afford anyone thinking that I didn’t know something, let alone something everyone else seems to know…

Ah, the things we think because of social anxiety.

8. Push the close button in an elevator at super speed

Tell me you can relate to this.

You walk through the sliding doors of your building, step up to the elevators and press the button. There’s no one else around you. You look back at the entrance and notice that someone you know is about to enter as the elevator dings.

You run into the elevator, start pressing the close button panicky maniacally, and barely make it as you see their hand about to stop the elevator.

Phew, they were too late.

Holy shit, did they see me?? Yep. Most of my life, this was how I handled elevators.

9. Go in the opposite direction I need to go to

I did this thing where I became overly polite at my own expense.

For example, if I was driving and I needed to take a left-hand turn but there were five cars behind me waiting, and there was a nonstop flow of vehicles coming from the other way, I’d take a right turn instead and drive for 10 miles to not be an “inconvenience” to the cars behind me.

I hated making people wait for me, so I’d go in the opposite direction if I had to.

Please don’t get out of your car and yell at me for not taking the initiative to go the moment I should have gone but was too scared!

10. Only go to places that let me book online

Ok, you caught me; I still do this. I don’t blink twice if I have to get a wax at a place that’s 20 minutes further, as long as they let me book an appointment online. There’s no way I will pick up a phone, try to coordinate on the spot with the host on the available time slots, and talk about the options I want to have. I’ll skip all of that; thank you very much.

I don’t understand how in this day and age, there are service-based businesses that do not accept online bookings. It’s so mind-blowing to me that it feels somehow fishy.

These are the top 10 things I do because of social anxiety, but plenty of others will make you laugh.

The easiest way to start managing your social anxiety is to laugh at what it makes you do and then take steps to work through it.

Social anxiety is no joke; I know because I’ve lived with it for many years. But I can laugh at some of the things it made me do because I’ll give it too much power over me if I don’t.

What things have you done because of social anxiety that make you chuckle?