Awkwardness: A Theory | Alexandra Plakias
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While awkwardness has always been around, the past 20 years especially have seen consistent popularity of awkwardness in media, specifically "awkward comedies."1 Examples include shows like The Office, Fleabag, I Think You Should Leave, or anything Nathan Fielder touches. In real life, on the other hand, people are looking to avoid awkwardness. An online search for "awkward" yields lots of articles and videos promising to help you "overcome awkwardness" or even to "be less awkward" altogether. The advice is mostly of limited practical use, and the articles often don't even attempt to properly define awkwardness.
Wikipedia is no help either. It does not have an article for "Awkwardness." Instead, the page for "Embarrassment" lists it as a synonym. But the idea that these two ideas are the same quickly falls apart under scrutiny. So what is one to do if they are searching for guidance on what awkwardness actually is, where it happens, and how to navigate it—either intentionally leaning into it for exploratory or comedic purposes, or avoiding it? One might look to a book titled Awkwardness: A Theory.
Indeed, this book is an excellent and thorough look at awkwardness. It starts by defining awkwardness not as a feeling, nor as a descriptor of a kind of person, but as a property of a social situation. Specifically, awkward situations are those where you find yourself at a loss of what to do, to say, to feel—in short, you find yourself without a social script:
To be in an awkward situation is to realize simultaneously that you lack guidance and that you should have it; that there’s a kind of knowledge you usually have and suddenly don’t.
After providing numerous humorous examples and diving a bit deeper into the definition, the next chapter deals with awkwardness as it relates to feelings. While awkwardness itself is not a feeling, there are feelings that typically accompany an awkward situation ("uncertainty, self-consciousness, and discomfort"). We also associate awkwardness with cringe, but it's not so straightforward:
[C]ringing is a symptom of embarrassment, and we’re often embarrassed by our own or others’ awkward moments, so cringing and awkwardness do tend to correlate—but the mediating factor is either embarrassment or shame. Cringing isn’t a direct result of awkwardness itself, but part of an experience which responds to awkwardness, among other things.
We are not cringing at the awkwardness itself, but we cringe because we are embarrassed at not having been able to navigate the situation, which led to it being awkward. Recognizing that a situation was awkward because we did not know how to deal with it, and subsequently forgiving ourselves for not having been equipped, is an easy way to finally let go of the negative feelings we have been carrying with us.
When I brought up the topic of awkwardness with people, they often connected it with social norms. Awkwardness, they would say, is when we break social norms. Chapter one will already have demonstrated where this falls short2. Chapter three takes a look at the interplay between awkwardness and social structures, and also returns to examine awkwardness' relation to social norms:
When a topic is awkward, it’s hard to get information about others’ attitudes. Thus, awkwardness is an epistemic double blow: by stopping us from discussing topics, it stops us from gathering the information about others’ expectations needed to determine which norms govern the issue. So even as awkwardness signifies an absence, it impedes our attempts to remedy it.
Social norms guide us through social situations. When we find ourselves in a situation for which we don't know which norms apply, or we interpret either the norms or the situation wrongly, the situation is at risk of becoming awkward. This can deter us from further pursuing a direction, or even stop us from broaching a topic altogether, as might be the case with discussions of pay, death, or periods. Some topics are actually better not discussed, so awkwardness provides a decent barrier here. But as our culture and norms shift, awkwardness can also hinder our progress in developing new norms.
The book includes three more chapters: one on morality, one on awkwardness' silencing effect, and the last a conclusion with a look at the future of awkwardness. I'm not here to spoil all of it, so you'll have to read the book yourself to hear about those topics and to dive much deeper into the areas I've quoted above. And I think you should. Awkwardness: A Theory is an excellent guide to this quirky human phenomenon. Lots of fun and cringe-worthy examples illustrate social as well as philosophical insights and keep the text easily approachable.
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