It’s understandable if you simply don’t want to be around nor befriend socially awkward people because of how they unintentionally make you feel, but I noticed that there are people who really hate their guts.
The people who hate them are usually mean, immature, and insecure. They also seem very stuck up as well. That’s my main issue with people who hate socially awkward people. This is also my personal experience.
This may be why I was so desperate to move away from the places I went to high school/college at some point in my life. I’m 29 now and people from there don’t seem to like me too much because of how awkward I used to be at age 21-22. That’s why I stopped trying to reach out to them because some of them are still angry over how I acted all those years ago.
At my old college, people seem to hate and demonize socially awkward people. They even bully them and ironically go out their way to make them feel uncomfortable. There is this one autistic guy from my old college and people seem to enjoy cyberbullying him. Even to this day, people still do it despite him graduating back in fall 2018.
EDIT: I did take action years ago and I did improve my social skills so I don’t get stuck in that vicious cycle of driving people away and playing victim by not knowing why.
30 comments
When you don’t have compassion, your relationship to people is either admiration, tactical respect, or disgust.
Socially awkward people are relatively powerless. That means a person without compassion will find them disgusting.
The people who will judge and say bad things about you are those whose opinion matter least.
Some ppl like to form groups and pick on others they perceive as weaker. It’s a bonding experience for them
These ppl are very very insecure.
People who hate are never nice people.
That is really sad. Some people really look for an opportunity to play “top dog” I’m glad you moved away. It sounds like your life is much better for getting away ..
There are 3 types of people in the world.
Those that produce confidence,
Those that have a limited supply of confidence,
And those that have black holes.
Those that have black holes will not be confident or happy with themselves no matter what happens. They just have an utter void of self worth that keeps them in the lowest parts of the social ladder because their black hole drives others away.
Those that have a limited supply of confidence are followers. They are bullies. They are copycats. These people are constantly trying to get confidence from others by hanging around Those with more than themselves, putting others down, or fleeing from those less confident than themselves.
Those that produce confidence can do anything they want. They can say anything they want. They trust themselves. They set the social standards. They aren’t afraid of others, and others often flock to them.
It’s all just the economy of confidence.
People who hate people for things they cannot change, and don’t harm others, are sad hollow assholes. A sha if you will. 🙂
I think ppl who bear a hatred towards anyone are usually unpleasant.
Count ourselves lucky that we have tech so advanced these days it makes meeting new people more easy.. don’t need to stick to your old community if it makes you feel uncomfortable.. you are 29 now, no longer some teenager who can’t work to support themselves.
I had to move too for almost the same reason. I do not know why people have such a strong hatred for socially awkward people. They go out of their way to bother them it’s sad. I’ll never understand. Thankfully I learned social skills and no one bothers me anymore but no one should bother anyone anyway
Facts
I used to be friends with someone who didn’t like that I was quiet and socially awkward. This happened a loooooong time ago but like I’ve always wanted to share the story because it was pretty messed up. I had a lot of messed up friends but this person takes the cake.
When we were really young, she would punch me in the arm several times until it felt tender and painful to touch, and I would just take it because she had no friends and I liked making friends at the time.
In high school, she was like the “leader” of our friend group and would get everyone to laugh about how quiet I was. It eventually led to people always making the same jokes about me being so quiet. But like it wasn’t just me she targeted. She would make a joke about every person and say that that’s how you know a person would be a good friend, if they can handle mean jokes. Sometimes the jokes were hurtful but we all brushed it off as best as we can because this person was so outspoken about being able to handle jokes that we didn’t wanna be called out for being “sensitive.”
It was really such a toxic relationship and I eventually escaped it but I lost all of my friends from that group except for one. The ones I lost weren’t all bad people, but that girl who used to punch me and make mean jokes was practically tyrannical. She liked to control how our group worked and would judge anyone who went against her decisions. If you made any comment about her, she’d get angry and defensive and might talk shit about you to other people.
And like this is a random mention but I think it’s relative—she’s the type of religious person who goes to church because she thinks it automatically makes you a good person and whenever she goes on one of those silent retreats, she “confesses” her sins to purge (tbh, I’m not very religious so I don’t know how it works. This is just what I heard and idk if it’s something people commonly do on retreats). She once confessed to another girl during the retreat that nobody in our group liked her and apparently that girl cried to her about it. When we (the group) heard about this, we were all like “wtf” because while we didn’t like this one girl, we didn’t want her to know about it because we didn’t want to hurt her feelings like that and some of us were still friends with her even if we didn’t love her as a person. It just made things super awkward and uncomfortable. And it didn’t make sense to us how that counted as a confession when it wasn’t only her secret to tell, but she thought it made her a good person for revealing it and dragging everyone into the mess.
I honestly find it so ignorant that these people take it personally when YOU don’t know what to say. It has nothing to do with them. Compassion is so easy?
Yep. I think if they stopped doing that they’d have no other way of bonding.
Can definitely relate to that guy… I have what I believe to be undiagnosed autism, and boy were high school and college tough.
Yep, basically if you don’t fit in, they push you out. Some social groups are subtle and some are overt at this. Many reasons for this. I notice that highly socialised people and skilled people are most put off by awkward people.
I Think those types of people just like trying to feel superior to others, and in their eyes socially awkward individuals are easy to look down upon
I was kind of a depressed weirdo in high school. After that, I moved to a major city for uni to eat the dirt and pick myself up. After 6 years I come back to my hometown trying to connect with my high school friends and I can say a lot of them had the same thing you mentioned. Avoiding me for my past and not giving any chance that I might have changed or anything. The same conclusion I arrived was what you wrote here. They’re probably just resentful people and not worth reaching out at all. I live a socially and mentally healthy life now and have high confidence. It only makes sense to me now that these people that I was looking up on and trying to keep as friends were just people that weren’t worth it at all.
They are.
Just pretending.
This past semester in one of my classes we had a ‘question of the day’ and early on one of them was ‘what is your pet peeve’. Two people said their pet peeve was “people who couldn’t read a room”; one ended up chatting all semester and failed to see when people were staring at her because she was talking at the wrong times.
Anyone who *hates* anyone else for a personality quirk is typically an ass, yeah.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve observed this as well. People who *hate* the socially awkward are usually very impatient and intolerant, and don’t understand that people are different to themselves. They also tend to want to exert power over those that seem “weaker” than themselves, and socially awkward people usually hold very little social power so they’re easy targets. They despise the socially awkward person, but they also enjoy the fact that they have someone to bully. It’s a very weird paradox.
Obviously if a socially awkward person is seriously overstepping boundaries (being creepy or pervy) then it is understandable that they would be disliked, but there is still no need to go out of your way to be excessively cruel towards them.
Amen.
i think it’s usually because those people who are mean are incredibly insecure and take the awkwardness to mean you dont like them, so they go straight into self preservation mode…
So true!! Haha they are afraid of themselves actually. I think they see a potential similarity with them
They’re called bullies. They seek power over socially challenged people to feel better about themselves, and when they cannot step on a few weak people, they feel terrible about themselves.
Their self image literally lies in their ability to be superior and have power over others.
I think those who are mean to socially awkward people are projecting their own insecurities. Maybe what they see in the socially awkward person they see in themselves but can’t deal with it.
OP
Can you explain what kind of awkward?
What kind of things made them angry?
What kind of changes you did?
How did you improved your social skills?
To me it’s always come off as rather entitled and ignorant. I just can’t stand when people talk shit on someone for being “awkward” or “quiet”. As someone who has dealt with severe social anxiety but has learned to kind of fake it till I make it, I’ve always felt a deeper connection with those who clearly struggle with it, and I adjust the way I interact with them to how I know I wish people would interact with me back when I was less able to conceal my awkwardness and anxiety.
Whenever someone talks shit on a socially awkward person it just screams someone who has never really struggled with mental health and is so unaware of the privilege that that is. Also, how is being rude to someone going to help anyone get less socially awkward? I remember back in the thick of it having a good interaction with someone would make my week because I was so used to that face of ‘you’re weird and I’m judging you’ or the glance towards a friend and a slight chuckle, I rarely ever had someone be nice to me.
I’m on the spectrum and I’ve been bullied, abused, ostracized, and disrespected practically my whole life. I don’t know what it is, but most people seem to hate me right off the bat or after some time.
I’ve been bullied and abused by peers, teachers, co-workers, bosses, parents, and on occasion people working in stores. People also seem to attribute tons of negative qualities on me that I feel I don’t have.
If I manage to strike up a friendship it dissolves rather quickly. I’ve only ever been able to maintain friendships with other neurodivergent people. I seriously can’t stand most people.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that people seem to think I’m rather stupid and incompetent, although I’m very far from it. I can’t really explain it, but most people treat me… differently. They’re hostile.
They act bubbly, respectful, chatty, civil, and smile a lot to other people. They refuse to look me in the eyes, never smile when speaking to me, take on a passive aggressive tone of voice, attempt to antagonize me, and they make backhanded remarks.