How buying fish and chips helped my social anxiety

Photo by Meelan Bawjee on Unsplash

Sometimes life takes us down unexpected paths! I expected to be writing about Epictetus next but a) I have lost my marked up copy of ‘The Art of Living’ and have had to order a new one and b) I had an email from a reader which set me off on another train of thought - specifically, how a need for Gold Stars can affect us socially, an area I hadn’t previously thought of addressing.

It’s a new year and many of us will be making resolutions, hopefully not too punishingly goal-oriented! For those who suffer from social anxiety, it might be to take a first step towards conquering their fear of walking into a bar, joining a class, having an interview or simply asking for something in a shop. I worked with a teenager once who did everything he could to avoid speaking to a shop assistant. He feared being judged as ‘posh’, ‘uncool’ and worst of all, for using the wrong words. I related to the last. As a child, I was sometimes sent to buy fish and chips. I would wait in line, very small amongst the big workmen impatient for their lunch and wonder if I should ask for ‘portions’ of chips or ‘lots’ or ‘bags’. It seemed vital to get it right and appear to fit into this alien world, where I would be addressed as ‘luv’ or ‘ducks’ and have to stand on tiptoe to hand over the money I’d been hanging onto for grim death as I ran, clutching mum’s big, black shopping bag, all the way from home. I knew I had to count the change and make sure I hadn’t been ‘diddled’ but the thought of actually saying that my change was wrong, added to all else, was enough to put me off the longed for fish and chips.

Why? Why the hell did it matter whether I said ‘portions’ or ‘lots’? Was I expecting the entire queue to collapse in fits of helpless laughter at a little girl who used the wrong word? No. Whatever it was, the fear was of something not clearly imaginable but nonetheless terrible - of being the outsider, the one who didn’t fit in or worse, the one who wasn’t judged but who did the judging - ‘You have given me the wrong change!’ - because that would lead to being judged pernickety, righteous, a spoilsport, a prig. How did I think that would look in a friendly fish and chip shop, in an ordinary northern town? What ghastly fate did I imagine? I have no idea - but the feeling was horrible.

Hence, I (cruelly?) sent my teenage client to the local chip shop to order a bag of chips and simply observe how he reacted so that we could explore his version of this territory. You would think I had asked him to walk on fire but he did it and the task was a useful one because the only way to conquer social anxiety is, in the famous words of Susan Jeffers to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway.’ You have to start somewhere and chips are a cheering reward. And he was no more destroyed by the experience than I was.

So what’s the link with an addiction to Gold Stars? My suggestion is that it’s in our need to perform to a standard that we see as the best it can possibly be so that we are beyond the reach of any negative judgement or ridicule. In my eight-year old mind, I was seeking the perfect fish and chip interaction. It would go like this. I would wait patiently in the line, maybe slouching a bit like the men (after all, my mum wasn’t there to tell me to stand up straight), confidently but casually give my order, nonchalantly using the right words, fitting in as if I did this every day. Should the change be wrong, I would point this out firmly but discreetly, able to relate this tale of my heroism to my mother when I got home, with the still steaming fish and chips. Gold Star, please, and extra mushy peas for good behaviour.

So let’s unpack this. Who actually cared about my fish and chip shop performance? The workmen? No. The shop assistant? No. The owner of the fish and chip shop? No. My mum? No, so long as she got the goods and the right change. The only person who cared was me.

And that is key to unlocking ourselves from this particularly unpleasant version of chasing gold stars. The only person who cares is you.

OK, so let’s be honest - most of us will have commented on someone’s dreadful dress/hair/taste etc at some point in our lives - but it’s fleeting, unless we are particularly mean-spirited people, who delight in gossip, slagging off others and generally seeking popularity by putting others down - and, to be realistic, there are enough of them around to give us some cause for concern. But why would I allow my own life to be compromised by the likes of them? Why would I give them that power? The passing comment - it doesn’t matter, unless we let it. As Eleanor Roosevelt so famously said:

And the people who make a habit of mean comments - they clearly don’t care about me, so why would I do them the honour of caring what they say? All they are doing is diminishing themselves and their integrity, rather than me and mine.

We are social animals so in order to function healthily, we need inter-actions and relationships with others. What we don’t need, is for those inter-actions and relationships to be perfect - they just need to be good enough for us to get by. I have worked with many a teenager, crippled by social anxiety, who has presented me with a litany of their uselessness. ‘I’m just not funny, I’m not confident, I don’t know what to say, I’m not witty, I’m not interesting enough, I don’t know anything…’ They were operating from a belief that they had to be this superhumanly social being who everyone would find rivetingly interesting. Every interaction was to be performative, entertaining and working the audience, BAFTA winning efforts at all times.

This is entirely the wrong way round. We are not, in my view, here to be interesting. We are here to be interested - to ask others about themselves, to find out what makes them tick, what they love, what they hate, what distresses and uplifts them - who they are. To listen. We don’t need to say exactly the right words, worry about what we are wearing, whether we are the right weight or size, curate ourselves so that we fit in. We don’t need Gold Stars in ‘being sociable’ - we just need to be present, listening and willing to keep asking the next question, if there is one to ask - which for the eight year old me, went something like this:

‘Next!’

‘Can I have three cod, three lots of chips and two lots of mushy peas, please?’

‘Do you want salt and vinegar, ducks?’

‘Yes, please!’

It was a fine plaice to start. (Sorry - couldn’t resist that.)