Life can be so awkward. Here's how to embrace the embarrassing

0:02This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks. Our job now is to dream big. Delivered at TED conferences. To bring about the future we want to see. Around the world. To understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you. You just don't know what you're going to find. Challenge you. We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy? And even change you. I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading. From TED and NPR, I'm Manoush Zomorodi. And I hate to do this to you, but we are going to start the show back in the painfully awkward days of middle school.

0:49If you think about a cafeteria, there was the cool kid table, there's the athlete table, and maybe the edgy alternative table. But there was always a table of nerds. This is Tai Tashiro. The socially awkward kids who were the furthest thing from cool, who were maybe a little physically clumsy, who dressed frumpy. And yeah, that was Tai. I sat at that table. So it was the first week of school. He had just started seventh grade. And at my table were three other guys. One was Hassan. He was kind of this math prodigy who ended up taking classes at the high school. There was Will. He spent his time building model pine cars.

1:37He apparently dominated the pine car racing circuit. And Eddie. He was the funny one. But he had this dry humor, kind of a Wes Anderson humor that nobody really got. And we were all, you know, nice kids. We were good kids. But we were definitely not cool. And as the four looked around, they knew that they weren't cool, but they didn't understand why gossipy people wearing torn jeans or aviator sunglasses were. And no one played tag or King of the Mountain or Foursquare or any of these other things we thought were really cool. Instead, kids just stood around. Ty, Hassan, Will, and Eddie thought this was boring and absurd.

2:22And so they were going to do something about it. They were going to play. We were going to bring back the good old days of recess and inspire other kids to rediscover the wonders of play. So after some deliberation, we decided to kick it off with one of our favorite playtime activities, which were reenactments of wrestling matches from the Worldwide Wrestling Federation. They staked out a corner of the schoolyard between a chain-link fence and a soccer goal and got down to the important decision of deciding who would play who. Will declared that he'd play Hulk Hogan, who is the current champion.

3:05Someone else was Randy Macho Man Savage. Hassan selected the Iron Sheik. And keeping with these kind of semi-offensive racial stereotypes, I chose to be Mr. Fuji, who was the lone Japanese-American wrestler in the Federation. And we really got into it. There were chokeholds, eye rakes. Arm bars, body slams. And all the elaborate theater that went along with it. And it was fun. fly into the fence and then bounce back in double time, and then you'd clothesline them in the neck with your outstretched arm. This went on for weeks, Ty and his friends swinging each other around, until one day... I paused to, you know, wipe the sweat from my brow, and I just happened to glance at the other students in the courtyard.

3:57And all of a sudden, for the first time, I had this sharp revelation. None of the other kids were joining us. You know, a few of them watched us with a mixture of kind of fascination and horror. And as I realized all of this, I felt my stomach sink. And I felt a panic in my chest. Now, right at that moment of realization, Hulk Hogan placed his tight grip onto my arm. and he began to swing me around to build momentum, kind of like an Olympian getting ready to do the hammer throw. And my social life was kind of flashing before my eyes. You know, Will released me and it sent me forehead first into one of the steel fence posts.

4:49When I regained consciousness, it all opened my eyes and my vision was blurred and all I could see that there was this large group of kids that had gathered around the spectacle of me being knocked unconscious. Dazed and embarrassed, Ty stared up at seemingly every kid who he had ever wanted to impress, and he wondered, why am I like this? Why am I so socially awkward, and what am I going to do about that? Life is full of awkward occasions and people. And not just in middle school. It's going for a hug when the other person offers a handshake. It's that awful photo of you at the age of 12 that your mom puts on Facebook every year.

5:40It's every single appointment with the gynecologist. So how can we get over ourselves and make peace, even appreciate, the most cringeworthy interactions in our lives? On the show today, people who have found ways to shrug off shame and embrace the awkward through conversations, research, even art. But back to Tai Tashiro. In middle school, wrestling was just the latest in a long string of socially awkward behavior. Young Ty had a hard time reading body language. He was clumsy, prone to daydreaming, and he knew it. So he started studying how to overcome some of his awkwardness. I found kind of social role models, social heroes who were my peers.

6:33And you try to do it in a way that's not creepy, of course, but you're just kind of observing, hey, how do they navigate greetings? You know, what do they say? Give me an example. What would you write? The bus stop was a big challenge for me. Uh-huh. There were these three cute girls at the bus stop. And of course, I never had any idea about what to say. I did want to say something. There was a new kid at school. this kind of good-looking, mini Tom Cruise-like kind of guy. And I watched this smooth talker at the bus stop, and boy, was I taking notes about that. And one of the things I took away from that, which might not sound obvious to folks, was just the casualness with which he approached the situation.

7:20You know, my tendency still sometimes to this day is to come in hot. But, you know, oh, he would just come in so easy and so casual. And I just kind of wrote that down. No big surprise that later, Ty ended up studying psychology and even wrote a book about the science of awkwardness and what makes some people feel so ill at ease in the world. Yeah, I think it's helpful to understand two different aspects of awkwardness. So there's awkward moments and then there's awkward people. Awkward people, they actually think about the world and take in the world differently than people who aren't awkward.

8:05And it really falls into three characteristics. So awkward people have social skill deficits. They have a hard time knowing what's expected in a social situation and also have a hard time executing the right social skill. They have trouble communicating, which can be understanding what someone's trying to tell them, but also communicating what they intend to other people. And the third thing is obsessive interests. And I actually kind of love this. People who are awkward really love what they love, but sometimes to their detriment. So they can become hyper-focused on something and lose track of the broader social narrative.

8:46It's interesting because I think a lot of times people conflate the awkward person with a person who is on the autism spectrum. but are they very different? Where is there a crossover? Yeah. So psychology and psychiatry have kind of taught us to think about mental diagnoses as categorical, as either or kinds of things, right? You either have depression or you don't. And that's actually kind of unhelpful because the average person might have a couple of mild depressive symptoms, like one or two. The average person actually has maybe just a couple of awkward or autistic traits in a mild kind of way.

9:31And so it runs along this continuum. And so awkward people aren't autistic. I don't think it would be good for us to say that they're on the autism spectrum, but it is the case that it's not a clean cutoff. So autistic people are kind of like in the top 1 % of autistic symptoms. But then there's all these people that fall at the 98th percentile or 95th percentile, 90th percentile. And they still have a lot of problems with social skills and communication. And so they're closer to someone who's autistic than they are to someone who's average. And so what do we call that? And as I got into it, I thought, well, we call someone with social skill deficits and communication problems.

10:15We call those people awkward. I can't tell you how many people I've run into over the past couple of years who have said, you know what, my son or daughter would be at like that 95th percentile of autism characteristics, and they can never qualify for a diagnosis, but they can't get their kid any help just because they don't cross that threshold. So yeah, how do we still have empathy for that? And how do we as a society support people who are really struggling, but just don't meet that threshold? Earlier, you mentioned various common traits of awkward people. And I want to ask you about one of them, which is having sort of narrow interests.

11:03Yes, it is a common characteristic. It's actually one of my favorites. Awkward people, on average, I mean, they really love what they love. I mean, a lot. And I think that's a wonderful quality, all that passion that they have for their interests. I met an awkward adult a couple of years ago who told me they liked Game of Thrones, which a lot of people did like Game of Thrones. But this person really, really loved Game of Thrones. They had learned to speak Dothraki, which was one of the languages spoken in that show. So that kind of shows you the level of focus and the level of obsessiveness that kind of differentiates an awkward person from, you know, kind of the average person who has their likes and their interests.

11:51There's a quick analogy that's helpful to think about a lot of the science. Imagine that there's a stage, and let's say it's broadly illuminated. Tai Tashiro continues from the TED stage. You could see everything that happens. You could see people enter stage left or exit stage right. You could gather the social context surrounding the action, but you would spend most of your time looking center stage because that's where most of the key interactions will take place. And that's how most people see the social world unfold. Now, awkward people, by comparison, see that same stage not broadly illuminated, but spotlighted.

12:29And to make things interesting, that spotlight tends to fall a little left of center. So that means they're going to miss a lot of the key social information that's taking place, but they're going to have this brilliant perspective on an unusual part of the interactions and of the plot. In a minute, more awkward characteristics and Ty's argument for why being awkward is kind of awesome. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. You're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR, and we'll be right back.

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15:17We were just talking to psychologist Tai Tishiro, an expert on awkwardness and a self-identified awkward person. In his book, Awkward, The Science of Why We're Socially Awkward and Why That's Awesome, he outlines four characteristics of awkward people, including studies that show they prefer math and science to humanities, that they like a lot of structure and sameness, and that basically they lean toward ways of making life more predictable. That's exactly it. I mean, predictability is a great word to tie together all these different characteristics. You know, let me dissect this thing, understand all of the different parts.

16:01Well, that's a lot of control. Now let me put it back together in a way that makes sense and is predictable. That's exactly what's going on. And so one of the things you'll find with awkward folks is that they're very routine focused. They have their way, that they like to do things. They have their habits. And although any of us can get a little frustrated when our routines get interrupted, awkward people can get really bent out of shape about that. It's almost a panicked feeling that, hey, the structure I've put out there to help manage my life is being disrupted. And when things turn spontaneous, I'm really not as well prepared to handle like a spontaneous social interaction.

16:47It's almost like your inner computer is like recalculating, recalculating, recalculating, and it needs a minute, like you said earlier. Yes. You do say that being socially awkward is awesome. If you were talking to an awkward kid and they were like, I'm so sorry, I do not understand what is awesome about feeling like this, what would you say? You know, I'd say, look, I understand the skepticism for sure, because the social awkwardness is definitely not fun. And having that unknowing about what's going on in social situations and that chaos in your mind about what is going on here and how do I handle this appropriately?

17:31None of that's fun and it's pretty exhausting. and it's really not until later a lot of times that people realize that yeah hey there has been upside to some of my awkward characteristics you know when i was a kid about seven or eight years old my spotlight fell on something pretty unusual for a kid of that age as statistics so you know my my childhood is pretty much like friday night lights you know my dad was a coach and athletic director in our small town at the high school. And so at the games, I could have sat anywhere I wanted. I could have sat with the coaches or with the players, even the cheerleaders.

18:11But I instead chose to sit by the scorekeeper's table. And I would ask the scorekeepers a million questions. I was fascinated with this idea that they could quantify something as hectic as a basketball game. And then the coaches could take those numbers and help the players work together in a more efficient and cooperative way. I was so obsessed with it that I would spend hours upon hours analyzing the data when I got home. And while this was a great interest, it's not the kind of thing that makes you cool at school, I can say. Now, I was so interested in this notion of data that I started reading the sports pages for other sports to see how statistics were logged there, and would wake up early every morning to scour through the statistics.

19:01I also learned I had an unusual memory for numbers, and I would love it when the coaches turned to me on the bus and asked me about a player's points or shooting percentage, and I could just recite it off the top of my head. You know, it was early signs of some things that I might enjoy doing later on, and the kind of enthusiasm and interest I had for it was certainly unusual. That's actually the underpinnings for why awkwardness can be awesome, is that because they can be really hyper-focused on something and really persistent, what that can translate to is this kind of stubbornness to pursue really extraordinary things that other people might not want to pursue or might get bored with.

19:48So there's this curious correlation that's pretty robust between awkward characteristics and what psychologists would call striking talent or extraordinary achievement. I think that makes total sense. Yeah. You know, you could kind of look around at some of the people who have achieved really extraordinary things in our society. If you kind of stop and think about it, you know, a lot of them are actually kind of awkward. This person just sat in their garage for years and worked on this enormous problem, but step by step, figured out how the parts work. And by doing so, they were able to see a unique way to put those parts together for a solution that was totally novel and game changing.

20:40I mean, I say to my kids, if high school is the best time of your life, then that means it's all downhill from there. Like, no, it should be hard and awkward because you're working towards being a fully fledged human. Yeah. Manisha, I think that's great advice to give your kids. Because, yeah, if you think you totally know what's going on in high school, then you've taken someone else's framework. Totally. Yes. You know, I think one of the best things my parents told me repeatedly as I was growing up, they say, hey, Ty, so the key is figuring out how to fit in without losing yourself. And I think that's such great advice.

21:24It's advice I still take to heart to this day. And I think it's especially pertinent to people who are socially awkward. You know, awkward people have these passions. They have this incredible love for their interests and what they do. And don't be ashamed of that. You know, just fully embrace that and be proud of that. And it's just that the trick is, is don't get lost in that. That was Tai Tashiro. He's a psychologist and the author of Awkward. You can see his full talk at TED.com.

22:07On the show today, so awkward. And as Ty said, growing up awkward can stink. But it can also be a bonus later in life if you figure out how to harness it. Drawing has always been my first language because I was so shy when I was young and I always loved to draw. So I think I started using it to explore these big feelings in my late 20s, and it's been so helpful. This is New Yorker cartoonist Liana Fink. She has made an entire career based on her simple line drawings that capture uncomfortable moments in her life. Big moments, like what it felt like when she found out she was pregnant. It's so weird, and it's so weird voluntarily choosing to do it.

23:03It's like standing out in a field with a big sign saying, like, take me, aliens. But also everyday interactions, like how to respond in a coffee shop, when someone asks you to watch their laptop while they go to the bathroom. It would startle me to the point where I got a migraine and, like, couldn't get back to work for 10 minutes. It's like that much startle. Like it's like a lot. It's like you're being attacked by a lion. It's what it feels like. And now I say no because I think asking a stranger to watch your laptop is ridiculous because you want the laptop to be protected from strangers. But wait a minute.

23:50If someone said no, I would be like, wait, what? No? Like that would be so weird. Yeah. Maybe it shouldn't be. I don't know. It is. Yes, it's awkward. These situations might not strike you as funny, but Liana has discovered that a lot of people don't feel like they understand the unspoken rules of social interactions. My rules are the rules of leaving each other alone and being considerate to each other. And her very specific and awkward sense of humor has found a cult following. I'm not sure I'm right, but I think my perceptions are pretty dead on. But I also think that they're magnified to a point of distortion.

24:38I don't have a particularly interesting life, so I just like to write about the parts of my life that I think other people also go through. and I try to sum it up and put it into words and pictures to make sense of it kind of as a service. I sometimes wonder if I miss the memo about the most basic things. What are you supposed to make for dinner? What do you talk about in an elevator? Why do people cut in line? Here's Liana Fink on the TED stage. There are, of course, problems that can't be summed up in a single drawing. For these problems, you need many drawings. One more complex problem I have is with God.

25:30I'm Jewish, so I'm talking about the God of the Old Testament. My problem with God isn't actually a big problem. It's just, I don't know, it stayed with me. My problem with God is that he's too confident.

25:53For me, creation is an act of solving problems, of figuring things out. God already seems to have everything figured out. He strikes me as more of a king than a creator, and I'm not sure you can be both. As an experiment, I decided to remake the book of Genesis as a graphic novel. my version of God is not confident and maybe not coincidentally she's a woman I drew her as a kind of magical giant little girl character and she loves to make things she has complete faith in her own powers to make things she thinks very simply on the other hand she's always questioning herself. And after she makes something, she feels like she's really crossed the boundary and gone too far and kind of shown herself because she's very self-conscious and very shy.

26:57The Bible opens in this mysterious, moody way with God floating aimlessly on the face of a dark, mysterious void. In my version, I have her floating this way because she's feeling despondent about her limitations as an artist. She's made this messy, wet, mixed-up, dark first draft of the world, and she just doesn't know where to go from here. My adaptation of the book of Genesis is a creation story full of false starts and absurdities, but it's a creation story all the same. One in which a self-conscious woman, even though she worries and makes mistakes, is nonetheless a successful, committed artist.

27:45When I finished my book, I did feel a new connection to the God of the Torah and a new sense of belonging to my religion. I also felt a new sense of belonging, period. It's lonely being someone who has no idea how to act normal, but it's profoundly less lonely being that person in a world created for her by an equally awkward, self-conscious God. These days, when I worry that I won't know what to make for dinner, I remind myself that God wouldn't know either. what is your relationship to god now i miss her i felt really connected to her while i was working on this book it was a number of years and it's the only time in my life that i've felt kind of uncomplicatedly connected to my culture and my religion and i just i loved her um and now Well, the last vestige of that is that I've been reading my book to my two-and-a-half-year-old, and so my son actually believes that God is this character, and he talks about her a lot, and it just feels so naughty and, like, so vindicating that my son believes that God is me.

29:10your version puts god on the same playing field as us and it creates or gives space for people to feel less ashamed of their insecurities their humanity their cringy moments yeah i think that's why it speaks to people thank you it's permission and i so appreciate your putting it this way because A lot of people say, you did this wild thing. How did you ever think to make God fallible? I've never thought that God wasn't fallible. And I can't believe that anyone really believes that. To be fair, I don't believe in God. Oh, really? Yeah. Huh. Do you ever have people who look at your work and are like, what are you even talking about, do you feel like?

30:00Oh, yeah, all the time when people say, I'm surprised that you're such a sweet person in real life because your cartoons are so vicious and you seem so angry. Huh. Why do you think they think that? I think they're partly right. I think I've always been pretty direct, but I hid it until I was an adult. I was so afraid of ever offending someone. And I think maybe my extreme shyness when I was younger came from knowing that if I spoke, it would be slightly off-putting in a certain way. But since I've learned to not be shy, my personality is coming out. And for what it's worth, I haven't been diagnosed, but the thing I relate to the most is mild autism.

30:50And I don't think that diagnosis even existed when I was a kid. you're talking about this awkwardness that you felt as a kid and really turning it into your life's work do you still feel like you don't know what the rules are or have you have the rules changed because people are you know way more aware of neurodiversity all sorts of language that we didn't use when I was a kid? Or how do you see the world right now as it relates to you and feeling like you don't know the rule book? I feel like I know the rules, but I feel intensely that they don't actually make sense to me and that I'm working really hard to follow them.