Reading this forum, lots of people express fear others are looking and judging them.
I’m a recovered socially-awkward person and can fill this post with countless stories of when I was younger.
I’ll only say this. When I started college on first day of class, I got an anxiety attack. I thought people were looking at me and judging me. I appear young for my age and I thought people were thinking “what’s this little kid doing in class?”
In retrospect, I know people weren’t doing that. Still, I know how debilitating it is to worry about being judged. I want to assure it’s not happening. Here’s how…
Unless you’re famous, people aren’t thinking of you. We all have a lot to think and worry about. They’re not wasting value time and mental energy pondering about you. This is especially true in our modern cellphone age. Don’t tell me they’ll rather think of you than go onto their phones for something far more interesting and relevant.
If you can go into other people’s head, I promise you’ll be shocked how little they’re thinking about you.
There’s a saying which goes like this. *When you’re 20, you worry about what others think of you. When you’re 40, you stop worrying. When you’re 60, you realized nobody was thinking of you in the first place.*
Now that I’m over my social anxiety, I actually love it if people stare. I’m Asian-American who travels a lot. When abroad where Asians are rare, I love that the locals are staring at me. I enjoy the attention, especially when I open my mouth and speak English like an American.
12 comments
You’ve clearly never met my family. All they do is judge me. It’s like their favorite family activity.
Next time you’re out in public, stop and look at all the people around you. How many of them are you judging? Few or none, right? How many of them were you completely ignoring? Most?
That’s the same thing other people are doing. They’re not that different from you.
Not strictly true. It only takes a split second for someone to judge you/make an unconscious bias about you.
Quite simply, people can look at what you’re doing and immediately make a decision that they don’t like you – that by definition is judging someone. Yes, people aren’t likely to sit and ponder your every move, but they don’t need to sit and ponder to form an opinion about you.
I don’t think it’s right to tell people that nobody is thinking about you, but rather say that people do think about what you’re doing and that’s fine. The 20-60-20 rule states that 20% of people that you meet will immediately click with you, 60% of people *may* one day get along with you, the last 20% you’ll never get along with. Deliberately being blind to other people’s judgements won’t help you get more out of that 60%
But that’s just my opinion.
This is bs. I have muscles from years of working out and people are looking and judging me on appearance alone nonstop everywhere I go. Are you not judging most women you see in public as potential mates or just admiring their bodies or thinking hmm not much going on there? We as humans judge nonstop.
Why do we worry so much about people judging us? Because people *do* judge us. Only it’s highly likely they are judging something you weren’t thinking about 😅 It’s far more likely to be based on their own unique insecurities and anxieties
I’m glad that you found out the people weren’t judging you, but can you say you’ve never once heard any person talking about another person behind their back? And, if you haven’t, I have seen it happen many times.
Not trying to burst your bubble, you’re probably ok. But the best prescription is to figure out how to live well in spite of what people may or may not be saying/thinking about you. Although that is not easy.
They definitely are. No offense but people literally start pointing at me and talking to their friend.
How did you recover? Do you have any book recommendations? I need it for my child who has social anxiety
I definitely don’t feel like people will put you under a magnifying glass and watch your every move and base an opinion but I think everyone judges unconsciously. I do it as well for example if I’m in the gym and someone has been hogging the only machine of its kind for 30+ minutes my first thought is their a selfish douchebag. For myself I’m pretty introverted so I definitely feel like me not taking to people enough causes them to think I don’t like them which in turn makes them not like me when in reality I have no issue with them.
As you get older, you realize that most, if not all, the people you see on the street don’t really care about you.
I’m short, like 5’0 and most of the time, people don’t even look at me. I catch some people glancing back, but most people forget my face in about three minutes. All they’ll remember is that they saw someone short, and that’s **IF** they remember.
It’s kind of sad really, but no one really cares too much about strangers. Everyone has enough going on in their lives. I used to think everyone was watching me when I was in my 20s, but then I realized that there’s too much going on for everyone to single you out, much less judge you.
An exercise would be, how many strangers’ faces can you distinctly remember from walking down the street today? I’m willing to wager that most of you will say none.
I’m judging me though OP. And I always know…
I judge people I see. But I don’t laugh at people or mock them like a child. I think even the most non judgmental person is very judgmental just silently in their head. You can say you don’t care what people do. But you still subconsciously judge.
The big thing is just learning to not give a fuck if people are judging you, because what does it matter what they think?