Why You Shouldn’t Judge People Before Talking To Them First

I'm with you Leni. Although I do sometimes get brave enough to speak to new people, or people I hardly know, I often feel rejected by them. The curse of the socially anxious is we remember every rejection, or time we said something dumb, quite vividly. I remember going to an after school gathering, getting into a conversation with another parent, all good, feeling pleased I was managing to hold up my end of the conversation just fine, then someone else came and sat beside us and they turned to them like I'd just turned invisible. So I spoke to someone else, same thing happened moments later. I feel like people will talk to me only if there's no one else to talk to. Many people wouldn't even notice if this happened to them, I'm sure, but to the socially anxious, you may as well have slapped us in the face. I suspect many have no clue the person their talking to is anxious, so don't make any allowance for our inner turmoil.

And I don't really expect anyone to make any allowances for my inner turmoil tbh. They could well be dealing with s**t I don't know anything about that I'm not making any allowances for either, because I don't know about it.

Tbh, my symptoms are more physical than mental. Not that I don't have insecurities about the social interaction but those I can rationalize. It makes it suck all the more if I get into a panic attack because it seems to come from nowhere and has little to do with the people I'm talking to at that moment.

I'm sure if you had a husband he would think differently about that. Good luck.

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So, Shari which is worse? Joking about a stranger who very often you'll never see again or know, or openly complaining about your spouse? I get that the spousal complaining is "in good fun," but in reality they both are...so they're not much different.

This is to Ben Smith. You absolutely CAN NOT make a statement about "most men/women/children/cats/dogs/birds/old people/ANYTHING" and have it be true. Some women do this, some women don't but the fact that it's been branded on women to be "gossipers in their sewing circles" is just the truth and it's BS. I know plenty of women who never gossip. When a man say's something negative about someone it's rarely called gossip, but when a woman does, even if it's a true story, she's gossiping. As for your comment above I think it's much worse to make ugly comments about a total stranger because you are insecure than to say things about someone you live with and see every single day. Maybe those talks they're having is what's saving their marriage or at least avoiding a fight.

Actually, B cool, there's a large likelihood that there is something that most women or most men do. Problem arises when people take anecdotal evidence over statistical averages. I don't know if most people gossip, but most people I know do talk about others. Doesn't make it true for the world average though. Still, most of the time some behaviour is typical for some subgroup of people.

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Most women don't gossip? Show me your sources. I don't disagree that men gossip as well, but saying that most women - and men - don't gossip is absolutely ludicrous

you say that like its common knowledge. take a good look at our world today and tell me if you don't see hostilities for no other reason than not belonging to a group.

It is common knowledge, people just ignore that common knowledge because of their insecurities. Which the woman admitted to. I thought the story was honest.