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

Forgetting a name, a poorly executed hug, the 7th grade — awkwardness is part of our lives whether we like it or not. But what if we put the embarrassment aside and embraced our awkward selves? Guests include social scientist Ty Tashiro, cartoonist Liana Finck, journalist Melissa Dahl and sex and relationship counselor Erin Chen. Original broadcast date: April 19, 2024. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org http://plus.npr.org/. See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Manoush Zomorodi?

  This 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.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  You just don't know what you're gonna find.

• 0:22Manoush Zomorodi?

  Challenge you.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy?

• 0:26Manoush Zomorodi?

  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,

• 0:38Manoush Zomorodi?

  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.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  If 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.

• 1:03Manoush Zomorodi?

  This is Ty Tashiro.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  The socially awkward kids who were the furthest thing from cool, who were maybe a little physically clumsy, who dressed frumpy.

• 1:13Manoush Zomorodi?

  And yeah, that was Ty.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  I sat at that table.

• 1:19Manoush Zomorodi?

  So it was the first week of school. He had just started 7th grade.

• 1:23Speaker 02

  And at my table were three other guys. And one was Hassan. He was kind of this math prodigy who ended up taking classes at the high school.

• 1:33Manoush Zomorodi?

  There was Will. He spent his time building model pine cars.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  He apparently dominated the pine car racing circuit.

• 1:40Manoush Zomorodi?

  And Eddie, he was the funny one.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:56Manoush Zomorodi?

  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.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  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.

• 2:18Manoush Zomorodi?

  Ty, Hassan, Will, and Eddie thought this was boring and absurd. And so they were going to do something about it. They were going to play.

• 2:27Speaker 02

  We were gonna bring back the good old days of recess and inspire other kids to rediscover the wonders of play.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  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.

• 2:51Manoush Zomorodi?

  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.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Will declared that he'd play Hulk Hogan, who was the current champion. Someone 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.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  And we really got into it.

• 3:23Manoush Zomorodi?

  There were chokeholds, eye rakes.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Arm bars, body slams.

• 3:28Manoush Zomorodi?

  And all the elaborate theater that went along with it. And it was fun.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Flying to the fence and then bounce back in double time. And then you'd clothesline them in the neck with your outstretched arm.

• 3:42Manoush Zomorodi?

  This went on for weeks. Ty and his friends swinging each other around until one day.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  I paused to, you know, wipe the sweat from my brow. And I just happened to glance at the other students in the courtyard. And 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.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Now, right at that moment of realization, Hulk Hogan placed this 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.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  When I regained consciousness, I 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.

• 5:06Manoush Zomorodi?

  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?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Why am I so socially awkward? And what am I gonna do about that?

• 5:24Manoush Zomorodi?

  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. It's every single appointment with the gynecologist. So how can we get over ourselves and make peace, even appreciate the most cringe-worthy 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 Ty Tashiro. In middle school,

• 6:10Manoush Zomorodi?

  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.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  I found kind of social role models, social heroes, who were my peers. And 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?

• 6:42Manoush Zomorodi?

  Give me an example. What would you write?

• 6:44Speaker 02

  The bus stop was a big challenge for me.

• 6:46Manoush Zomorodi?

  Uh huh.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  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. He's kind of good-looking, mini Tom Cruise-like kind of guy. I watched this smooth talker at the bus stop. And boy, was I taking notes about that. And one of the things like I took away from that, which might not sound obvious to folks, was just the casualness with which he approached the situation. You know, my tendency, still sometimes to this day, is to come in hot. But, you know, he would just come in so easy and so casual.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  And I just kind of wrote that down.

• 7:36Manoush Zomorodi?

  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.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  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. And 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 interest. And I actually kind of love this. People who are awkward really love what they love,

• 8:35Speaker 02

  but sometimes to their detriment. So they can become hyper-focused on something and lose track of the broader social narrative.

• 8:46Manoush Zomorodi?

  It'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?

• 9:01Speaker 02

  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. And 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.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  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, we 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.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  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?

• 10:51Manoush Zomorodi?

  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.

• 11:03Speaker 02

  Yes, it is a common characteristic. And 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. And so that shows you the level of focus and the level of obsessiveness. It kind of differentiates an awkward person from, you know, kind of the average

• 11:48Speaker 02

  person who has their likes and their interests. There'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.

• 11:58Manoush Zomorodi?

  Tye Tishiro continues from the TED stage.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  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. And 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

• 12:43Speaker 02

  part of the interactions and of the plot.

• 12:47Manoush Zomorodi?

  In a minute, more awkward characteristics. And Tye'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.

• 13:13Manoush Zomorodi?

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• 14:47Manoush Zomorodi?

  If you've been hanging out with us here on the TED Radio Hour for a while, but haven't hit the follow button, take a quick second, follow us. You'll have our newest episodes waiting for you every week. We really appreciate it. Now, back to the show. It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zamirodi. And we were just talking to psychologist Tye 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

• 15:30Manoush Zomorodi?

  structure and sameness, and that, basically, they lean toward ways of making life more predictable.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  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. Well, 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

• 16:22Speaker 02

  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.

• 16:34Manoush Zomorodi?

  It's almost like your inner computer is like recalculating, recalculating, recalculating, and it needs a minute, like you said earlier.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:43Manoush Zomorodi?

  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?

• 16:57Speaker 02

  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? None 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, statistics.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  So, you know, my childhood is pretty much like Friday Night Lights. 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. But I instead chose to sit by the scorekeeper's table.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  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.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  I 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

• 19:32Speaker 02

  might not want to pursue or might get bored with. So there's this curious correlation that's pretty robust between awkward characteristics and what psychologists would call striking talent or extraordinary achievement.

• 19:49Manoush Zomorodi?

  I think that makes total sense.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  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.

• 20:26Manoush Zomorodi?

  I 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.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. Manoush, 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, I mean, then you've taken someone else's framework.

• 20:55Manoush Zomorodi?

  Totally, yes.

• 20:57Speaker 02

  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. It'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.

• 21:41Manoush Zomorodi?

  That was Ty Tashiro. He's a psychologist and the author of Awkward. You can see his full talk at ted.com. On 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.

• 22:10Speaker 05

  Drawing has always been my, like, 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.

• 22:29Manoush Zomorodi?

  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.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  It's so weird, and it's so weird voluntarily choosing to do it. It's like, like, standing out in a field with a big sign saying, like, "Take me, aliens."

• 22:58Manoush Zomorodi?

  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.

• 23:07Speaker 05

  It would startle me to the point where I got a migraine and, like, couldn't get back to work for 10 minutes. Like, it's like that much startle. Like, it's like a lot.

• 23:18Manoush Zomorodi?

  It's like you're being attacked by a lion.

• 23:20Speaker 05

  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, so...

• 23:34Manoush Zomorodi?

  But wait a minute. If someone said no, I would be like, "Wait, what? No?" Like, that would be so weird.

• 23:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. Maybe it shouldn't be. I don't know. It is, yes, it's awkward.

• 23:52Manoush Zomorodi?

  These situations might not strike you as funny, but Leona has discovered that a lot of people don't feel like they understand the unspoken rules of social interactions.

• 24:03Speaker 05

  My rules are the rules of leaving each other alone and being considerate to each other.

• 24:09Manoush Zomorodi?

  And her very specific and awkward sense of humor has found a cult following.

• 24:15Speaker 05

  I'm not sure I'm right, but I think my perceptions are pretty, pretty dead-on. But I also think that they're magnified to a point of distortion. I 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 missed 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?

• 24:59Manoush Zomorodi?

  Here's Leona Fink on the TED stage.

• 25:01Speaker 05

  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. I'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.

• 25:41Speaker 05

  For 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.

• 26:24Speaker 05

  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. The 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

• 27:09Speaker 05

  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. When 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

• 27:53Speaker 05

  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.

• 28:07Manoush Zomorodi?

  What is your relationship to God now?

• 28:13Speaker 05

  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. And now, 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.

• 28:57Manoush Zomorodi?

  Your 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 cringey moments.

• 29:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:15Manoush Zomorodi?

  I think that's why it speaks to people.

• 29:18Speaker 05

  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? Like, 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.

• 29:39Manoush Zomorodi?

  Oh, really?

• 29:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:40Manoush Zomorodi?

  Huh. Do you ever have people who look at your work and are like, what are you even talking about? Do you feel like?

• 29:48Speaker 05

  Oh, 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.

• 30:02Manoush Zomorodi?

  Huh. Why do you think they think that?

• 30:05Speaker 05

  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, like, 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. And I don't think that diagnosis even existed when I was a kid.

• 30:43Manoush Zomorodi?

  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 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 where, like, how do you see the world right now as it relates to you and feeling like you don't know the rulebook?

• 31:18Speaker 05

  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. I think becoming a professional really helped. Like, people respect me for my work to some extent. And also, maybe certain things I've learned to do, even though they make me really uncomfortable, like, make eye contact and like, have long hangouts and like, watch people's laptop while I'm supposedly having my two work hours in the day, that are hard for me, that wouldn't be hard for someone else. And so that often gets me into trouble

• 32:01Speaker 05

  when I'm trying so hard to play by the rules. But sometimes maybe I want to just play by my own rules and give myself a break. And that's when people misunderstand me or when I misunderstand people.

• 32:14Manoush Zomorodi?

  But I think your point being that, like, these moments that you capture feel very intense at the time, but you move on.

• 32:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, you move on. That's really the most magical thing in the world, is that, like, the thing you're feeling in the moment as if it's the entire world is not what you're feeling five minutes later at all. You're feeling something else.

• 32:38Manoush Zomorodi?

  And your work gives you a chance to recognize that. I think a lot of people move on and they forget how bad or awful it was. And maybe it's worth remembering that it was bad or awful, but you survived.

• 32:50Speaker 05

  Well, I never reread my own work, even if I made it yesterday. So I think I prefer to forget also.

• 33:00Manoush Zomorodi?

  That's cartoonist Liana Fink. Her latest book is Questions Without Answers, where she illustrates questions only kids would think to ask. You can see her full talk with her drawings at ted.com. On the show today, so awkward. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us.

• 33:32Manoush Zomorodi?

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• 34:03Speaker 03

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• 34:40Manoush Zomorodi?

  It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and on the show today, so awkward. Whether you identify as an awkward person or not, we have all had embarrassing moments. Few of us would choose to share them publicly, but our next guest says that maybe we should.

• 35:02Speaker 06

  It completely surprised me, actually.

• 35:05Manoush Zomorodi?

  Back in 2017, journalist and author Melissa Doll decided to stand on stage

• 35:12Speaker 06

  Hi.

• 35:12Manoush Zomorodi?

  in an auditorium full of strangers

• 35:15Speaker 06

  My name's Melissa.

• 35:15Manoush Zomorodi?

  to read from her seventh-grade diary.

• 35:19Speaker 06

  April 14, 1998.

• 35:21Manoush Zomorodi?

  It was for a stage show and podcast called Mortified.

• 35:25Speaker 06

  I hate my life. I don't know anyone in my geo class. Ditto for a computer.

• 35:29Manoush Zomorodi?

  And Melissa told the story of how she felt moving from Nashville to Chicago.

• 35:35Speaker 06

  Your teacher hates me. I'm the slowest typer in class. Kristy K can type 41 words per minute. I can only type 29 words per minute.

• 35:42Manoush Zomorodi?

  And some of the struggles she had fitting in at her new school, including deciding which boy band to like.

• 35:49Speaker 06

  How come no one here likes Hanson? It sounds silly, but to me, it was like humongous at the time. My big heartbreak was no one at my new school loved my beloved boy band Hanson. She says, I don't like the Backstreet Boys, and she doesn't like Hanson, so we'll have nothing to talk about. If that's how she feels, then I'll like the Backstreet Boys. I'll hate Hanson.

• 36:14Speaker 06

  The way I wrote in my diary was just like raw emotion. It wasn't like, this happened today. It was like, I am so sad. And so it was like, presenting this really raw version of myself to these strangers. And just not a version of myself that sees the light of day that often.

• 36:38Manoush Zomorodi?

  So at the time, Melissa was working on a book that she ended up calling Cringe-worthy. And confronting her longstanding fear of awkward moments was also research.

• 36:50Speaker 06

  Mortified turned out to be just like a really lovely show with like, a huge heart. And we all had these ridiculous stories we were like, about to share on stage to an audience. And there was something kind of, like, a collective notion about it, a community notion about it. And it ended up being really cathartic.

• 37:13Manoush Zomorodi?

  Hmm. When you were going through your diaries and thinking about reading them aloud, did you feel compassion towards your awkward teenage self, who it sounds like didn't know that she was awkward? Or did she?

• 37:32Speaker 06

  I think she definitely did. And that a lot of the journal was about wrestling with how much of herself to like, really show? And then how much to kind of like, remold, fit into this new place? And like, I hadn't thought about that version of myself in a really long time. I'd kind of like locked that away. Like, I'm totally different now. But, you know, like, these are the parts of ourselves that we try to hide. We're embarrassed of. And it's like, that part is how you actually make a real connection with someone else when they're like, oh, like, I see that in myself. We think that, like, presenting this like, perfect version of ourselves to the world is the thing that's giving

• 38:16Speaker 06

  the good impression. But really, people tend to like the people who spill coffee on themselves or whatever. Like, that's a real study. Yeah, it just, to me, like, I guess I actually started the book kind of thinking it would be pretty like, prescriptive. You know, here are these 10 ways to banish feeling awkward forever from your life. But it turned out that's not what happened. What ended up happening in the end is I totally changed my mind about the way I see these emotions.

• 38:45Manoush Zomorodi?

  Melissa Doll continues from the TED stage.

• 38:48Speaker 06

  I'm talking about these self-conscious emotions, which are things like shame, embarrassment, and my favorite, awkwardness. And it's our natural instinct to resist these feelings. You know, they're unpleasant. They're uncomfortable. We don't like them. But what if we didn't resist? What if we gave them some space? What are they trying to say? I believe now that they are prompting us to ask ourselves some pretty important questions. They're asking you, who are you? How do others perceive you? And who do you want to be?

• 39:27Manoush Zomorodi?

  In your TED Talk, you say that a lot of people ask you, "How can I stop cringing at my past self?"

• 39:34Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:35Manoush Zomorodi?

  But it sounds like you would say, like, "No, don't."

• 39:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, more like the honest answer is you're just, you're not going to. And, and there's, there's reason to think that, like, if, if you're not cringing at things you did, you know, 10, five years ago, last week, then you're not, like, growing as a person. I mean, as corny as that sounds, I really, I really believe that. Like, you should look back on what you did 10 years ago and think like, "Oh, gosh, like, that's not me anymore." I mean, um...

• 40:06Manoush Zomorodi?

  But look how far I've come.

• 40:07Speaker 06

  But look how far I've come. Yeah, exactly. Like, I see the missteps there. I'm not that person anymore.

• 40:12Manoush Zomorodi?

  Do you think allowing yourself to think about those cringey moments more often is a good idea? Like, would you recommend to someone going on their own version of the Mortified Podcast? Like, essentially giving themselves cringe exposure therapy?

• 40:25Speaker 06

  I mean, yeah, you don't even need to, like, give yourself cringe exposure therapy. It's more just like, like, yeah, like, kind of like letting it in as it happens. Like, you can seek it out and do the extreme versions if you want to. Um, but I think that it just, it just happens every day. Um, I was just thinking about this a few weeks ago. I, um, I was recently laid off from my media job. Um, and I ran into, thank you. I ran into some people from my old work at a party. And, you know, we said hello, and then just no one knew what to say. And I just, like, bolted, like, like, 30 seconds later, I just, like, left.

• 41:05Manoush Zomorodi?

  Oh.

• 41:06Speaker 06

  And in the weeks afterwards, I was thinking about that a lot. And like, what that maybe reveals about, I don't know, some sort of gap between, like, who I am and like, maybe who I want to be, which is my kind of whole theory about like, what cringing reveals. I mean, I would like to be someone who isn't embarrassed about getting laid off, especially right now. There isn't anything embarrassing about that.

• 41:30Manoush Zomorodi?

  No.

• 41:31Speaker 06

  Um, but I think, like, bolting from that party kind of signaled that I was embarrassed, that I wanted to hide. And I thought about that a lot for weeks. And I decided that I just, it wasn't useful to, to just, like, hide myself away. So I, I ended up posting this, like, kind of lengthy thing on LinkedIn. Talk about a cringe, cringe place. LinkedIn is pretty cringe. But it went, like, kind of viral. It got, like, I think, like, 85K impressions.

• 41:57Manoush Zomorodi?

  Oh, my god.

• 41:58Speaker 06

  Well, after 15-plus years in media, layoffs finally came for me. As of last month, I'm no longer with BDG. In the long term, I'd like to find something full-time in media or marketing. In the short term, I've been taking on freelance and project-based work. Basically, you need some words. I'm your girl. Sorry to brag, but I was also quite good at it. In my first year at BDG, my contributions helped increase ad sales by more than 125%. So how can I help? Let me know if you or someone you know needs an experienced writer, editor, or content strategist, especially in the health and wellness space. Thanks. And I got a ton of great opportunities from that, despite the fact that, like, while I was posting it, I was just feeling so just embarrassed and self-conscious.

• 42:41Speaker 06

  I was literally, like, sweating buckets. You know, wanting to push out that embarrassment, but instead kind of sitting with it and kind of feeling like, what could this teach me? And what, like, what could happen if I just didn't let this feeling dictate my behavior? It still feels like a shameful, embarrassing thing, but it's, it just isn't. And I think that this, for me, in these last couple of months, has been a really practical way to kind of, like, engage with this feeling and engage with, like, the, the kind of connection that can come from it. I got so many people who, like, reached out and were like, "Oh, my gosh, I've been there. Let's get coffee," you know? And I'm, I'm so glad, I'm so glad I did it.

• 43:28Manoush Zomorodi?

  If you could go back to that party, then would you react differently?

• 43:35Speaker 06

  I mean, I wish I hadn't bolted. I wish I had just, like, you know, stayed. I mean, the girls I ran into are, like, great people that I really liked and I still really like. And yeah, I wish I had just kind of taken a breath and just had a conversation.

• 43:51Manoush Zomorodi?

  Yeah. Do you think they realized it was awkward?

• 43:54Speaker 06

  I think everybody did.

• 43:56Manoush Zomorodi?

  Really? Because I always wonder, like, why not be like, "Well, this is awkward, but I'm really glad I ran into you guys."

• 44:01Speaker 06

  I know. I probably should have reread my own book and, and done something like that.

• 44:09Manoush Zomorodi?

  That was journalist Melissa Doll. Her book is called Cringe Worthy: A Theory of Awkwardness. You can see her full talk at ted.com. And a big thank you to our friends at the show and podcast Mortified.

• 44:25Manoush Zomorodi?

  Finally, we want to talk about one of the most awkward conversations there can be, the one about sex. Which means this next segment needs a warning that we're about to hear a frank talk about sex and consent. It's a topic that sex educator Erin Chen thinks we need to be more blasé about. It's actually an approach she learned from her middle school sex ed teacher. Here she is on the TED stage in 2017.

• 44:55Speaker 07

  Ms. Marziale had just taught the school curriculum for sex ed, which is basically, STIs, STIs, this is what a condom looks like. And to wrap up the unit, she handed out these white pieces of paper. And she told us we can ask any other questions we had. She told us we can ask anything we wanted. Well, I remember when she started reading out those questions, the entire room just took a collective breath.

• 45:30Speaker 07

  And we waited for her reactions. When she knew the answer, she answered it. And when she didn't, or more like, I suspect, didn't know how to answer the question, she simply looked up and calmly said, "I'm gonna find out and come back to you tomorrow." Just like that. Like, we'd asked her a question about math, and she needed to go look it up in the answers book before coming back to us. While the facts that Ms. Marziale shared were interesting, what made a profound difference was the way she shared those facts. She was normal about them.

• 46:11Speaker 07

  And what I mean by "normal" is she gave us permission. Permission to be curious. Permission to inquire. Permission to treat sex like it's normal. This is about our sexual wellness, which plays a big role in how we feel in our own skin, in our sense of who we are. It plays a role in how intimate we are in our relationships, in our marriages. It even impacts our overall health, both physically and mentally. So for the rest of this talk, I invite you to take a deep breath

• 46:55Speaker 07

  and just focus on yourself. Soak up the sex talk.

• 47:02Speaker 07

  Which would be a pretty rare thing to do, wouldn't it? Because for the most part, we are all so scared about what other people think when it comes to sexuality. We hardly ever talk openly and honestly about it. Now, how would this apply to your lives when it comes to sex? It's pretty hard to imagine what it'll feel like if it's not awkward or embarrassing. Kind of hard to imagine. So to help you bridge that gap, imagine your favorite dessert. Now imagine you've been craving that dessert for an entire day or an entire week.

• 47:42Speaker 07

  Now imagine finally taking that first bite. Those are pleasurable sensations. And interesting fact, research conducted on our brain patterns show that when it comes to our pleasure response to food and to sex, similar parts of our brains are stimulated. So biologically, the way we want, consume, and learn from our food experiences is actually very similar to the way we desire, initiate, and complete our sexual experiences. Yet with food, we are all so comfortable and confident with our own preferences.

• 48:27Speaker 07

  Like, you know if you like dark chocolate or not. You know if you love durian or if you hate durian. And for those who don't know what durian is, think escargot or chopped liver. The point is, no one is on the fence about whether or not you like or dislike these types of foods, right? And we're okay expressing that. So how do we get so comfortable with food? We've had practice. We gave ourselves permission to be curious, to inquire, and to treat it as a normal part of life.

• 49:11Speaker 07

  Wouldn't it be a relief to be able to do the same with sex? And that's what I want you to walk away with today. Ms. Marziale probably didn't think that by answering those questions the way she did, she would have made that kind of a difference for me. But she did. So be aware of how you choose to engage others when it comes to conversations about sex. And if today's conversation sparked something for you, then share what you learned about yourself. We need more Ms. Marziale's in this world. And finally, know that it's gonna take time, but it is possible.

• 49:52Speaker 07

  I know this not only from my own work, but also personally with my family. When I first told my parents about my passion and my desire to work in this area, they did not love the idea.

• 50:09Speaker 07

  Imagine traditional Taiwanese parents in their 60s. My father actually told me that he might have to lie to his friends about what it is that I do. And for close to a year, every single phone call was spent trying to talk me out of it. But through conversation and over time, they've come around. To the point where my mother now shares things with me that I never would have thought I would hear from my own mother. And I get to contribute my expertise to her. So whether it's food or another area in your life, you know how to have these conversations.

• 50:54Speaker 07

  You know how to trust your body. It's just that with sex, we're all playing catch-up. What matters at the end of life is our experience of life. In our bodies, in our relationships. So don't go through life terrified of asking others about durians. Living a sexually intelligent life is worth it. And just remember the secret ingredient of permission. Thank you.

• 51:30Manoush Zomorodi?

  That was sex and relationship counselor Erin Chen. You can see her full talk at ted.com. Thank you so much for listening to our show, So Awkward. I hope we made you squirm at least a couple times. This episode was produced by James Delahoussaye, Katie Monteleone, Matthew Cloutier, and Harsha Nahada. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkhanpour and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes Rachel Faulkner White and Fiona Guerin. Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. Our audio engineers were Kwesi Lee, Gilli Moon, and David Greenberg. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei.

• 52:11Manoush Zomorodi?

  Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Helen Walters, Alejandra Salazar, and Daniela Balorozzo. I'm Manoush Zamirodi, and you've been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

• 52:27Speaker 04

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. Support for this podcast and the following message come from Henry Ford Health. What if medical expertise could travel far beyond the hospital? This led Henry Ford Health doctors to develop remote ultrasound diagnostics used by astronauts. More at henryford.com/scienceforthewin.

• 52:49Speaker 03

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