Why Social Awkwardness & Charisma Are a Myth
The following chapter is from Street Smarts: 101 Short Stories, Essays, and Insights to Improve Communication Skills
In college, there was a semester when there was a new kid named Terin transferring to my school. One of the members from my friend group could not stop talking about Terin.
‘Guys, wait till you meet Terin! He is one of the coolest guys you can meet!’
The guy saying this was typically a hater.
Eventually, Terin moved to Tampa & a lot of people from my friend group began chilling with him. For some reason, I always happened to have class when they were all hanging out.
Soon enough, everyone from my group was like:
‘Terin is so cool, Armani. You two need to meet!’
Finally, one day, I ended up going to a party where Terin was going to be.
By the time I met him, I was a little surprised.
We both looked similar.
Same height, similar fashion style & same haircut.
That must be why everyone thought we needed to meet.
We finally interacted.
‘How did the interaction go?’
Honest truth?
It was so boring!
Terin was putting me to sleep.
Mumbled, took forever to respond, low energy, and much more.
Why did Terin cause so much hype?
I will come back to this shortly.
The next year, there was a kid in my engineering class named Jesse.
Jesse was one of the smartest engineers I ever met.
Genius level.
Our class hated him.
They thought he was weird.
Jesse was too smart.
He would sit in the front of class by himself & always answer the teacher’s questions.
The other kids thought he talked too much.
One day, class had ended & I was staying a few minutes after to solve some problems.
Jesse randomly came up to me & began a conversation.
He introduced himself & noticed I had asked the professor a question earlier about semiconductors. Jesse came by to see if I understood the topic.
I told him that I was still a bit confused.
So, what did he do?
He spent the next 2 hours tutoring me.
Jesse was awesome!
He played a lot of sports growing up, studied philosophy, had a business, etc.
The 2 hours passed on by.
No clue why everyone hated him.
These 2 moments made me realize something.
You hear the terms ‘social awkwardness’ & ‘charisma’ used often.
But both terms are relative.
It is relative to the person using them.
I thought Terin was socially awkward. Others thought he was charismatic.
I thought Jesse was charismatic. Others thought he was socially awkward.
What do you consider yourself?
Charismatic or socially awkward?
Want to know something mind-blowing?
There are multiple people in the world who would consider you the opposite of what you came up with. No one can be liked by everyone no matter how hard they try.
It’s like me telling you to go bring me a purple elephant.
You would wave me off as a joke.
But my friend…
You have yet to wave yourself off as a joke despite chasing the impossible task of being liked by everyone.
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