How not to be socially awkward

Party season is rapidly approaching, thank God.

I host social events of varying sizes with moderate frequency. Most are for close friends, some are for all friends, and a few are for everyone.

Hosting — or attending — events that welcome everyone means that there are likely to be some attendees you don’t vibe with or frankly don’t like. This is the price of inclusion and openness, which overall are values that do more good than harm.

It’s also possible that you will occasionally rub others the wrong way. Some of this is normal, but some of it might be preventable with just a little attention to the following.

As a general rule, I try to write articles in the vein of “how to succeed” (e.g. how to become more extroverted, how to be friends with people who impress you, and how to be a better guest). This one is “how not to fail” because sometimes people respond better to direct instructions than subtext.

Stop talking about yourself

It is normal to talk about yourself. It is not normal to talk so much about yourself that you never ask questions about others. Men are especially guilty of this. Ask questions of your companions. Also, listen to the answers and then ask follow-up questions. A five-minute soliloquy followed by “What about you? Oh, really? Actually that reminds me of when —” is almost more insulting than if you’d just talked uninterrupted for ten minutes.

If you feel like people are asking you questions a lot and you’re being socially obliged to talk about yourself a lot, be direct. “Anyway, I’ve gone on for ages — [name], [specific question].” Make it easy for others to chime in. Come prepared with random questions if you need to, and be comfortable changing the subject if conversation is waning.

Obey supper table rules

No SEX, no POLITICS, no unsolicited RELIGION.

Nobody you’ve just met wants to hear about your sex life. They might pretend they do to be polite, but they don’t. Also, nobody wants to hear you go on about your ideological convictions. Unless you know (not guess, know) that they agree with you about everything, which you don’t if they’re strangers, keep the conversation on neutral ground.

Nowadays religion is a slightly smaller faux pas, unless you’ve converted to something, in which case remember that your faith is a much greater source of meaning to you than it is to people you’ve just met. Equally, if several of you share a faith or religious background that isn’t relatable to others in the group, move the conversation toward something more accessible.

Stop complaining

This is a distillation of the first two rules, because the chief areas of complaint are usually politics and personal lives. It isn’t that nobody cares about your problems, it’s that people you’ve just met who have come to a party to have fun will be kind of annoyed if they have to spend half of it listening to your travails. Time and place matter. If you’re not paying them, it is basically never appropriate to complain about your problems to strangers.

This doesn’t mean you can’t talk about things that are going wrong for you, but it does mean that you need to do so in a way that makes space for others to share their own issues and without implying that your conversational partner has any obligation to cheer you up (which they will feel if they have a mote of emotional sensibility and you’re offloading onto them).

Try not to loom

I have particular sympathy for looming. When you’re surrounded by people you don’t know, it’s tough to walk up to a group of them and join their conversation without hesitating. But interrupting people (gently, and without demanding that they all pay attention to you) is generally better than hovering awkwardly on the periphery, waiting for some kind soul to give you an in.

This is particularly true when there are several of you doing it at once, and thus few opportunities for someone in the group to allow you collective entrance. But the vibes of having a nice chat to your friends while five strangers lurk silently outside the circle, watching and listening but saying nothing, are terrible. It really is more graceful to risk interrupting and introduce yourself, politely, then give whoever was speaking an opportunity to return to their subject, than to hover mutely beside them.

Don’t be a creep

This one I haven’t seen in a while, for which I thank whatever patrons of discourse are responsible for shaming men out of it. But very occasionally someone makes one of my friends uncomfortable by being overtly sexual, and it sucks, and it means I will never invite that person to anything again. You can hit on people without being sinister about it or handling rejection badly. If you think you’re not there yet, don’t hit on people at all.

Don’t be overfamiliar

This one is also mercifully rare in my social sphere, probably because people who come to stuff that I host are more likely to be trying to come out of their shell than asking to be shoved back inside it. But if someone’s told you that the way to make friends is to touch people on the arm, repeat their name a lot, and stare into their eyes, that person is not your friend and is probably not anyone’s friend because they are a sociopath. It’s like PUAs or someone trying to sell you their SaaS package: it makes people feel that you see them as goals, not human beings.

There are few of these that I’ve never fallen afoul of, and even fewer that haven’t been routinely practiced by people I love. You are not a bad person for being socially awkward. But you will be a better person for making others around you comfortable, relaxed, and happy.

Editor's note: This essay originally appeared on Elle's Substack.