I suffer from situational awkwardness—a self-diagnosis, mind you, but one I feel pretty confident about, given the evidence. My ability to follow social norms fluctuates depending on the setting: the ages of the people I’m around, the general vibe of the people I’m around, how well we know each other, even the physical environment. (Is this a home game or an away game?) Basically, if I’m visiting a stranger’s house and meeting their rowdy kids for the first time, I will probably be a different person than if I’m hanging around my parents at a restaurant. I envy people who always seem comfortable in their own skin.
It’s probably no shock, then, that I find it difficult to follow certain social rules. (This also extends to the concept of unwritten rules—let’s all get on the same page so I can know exactly whom and how much I should be tipping, okay?) At least I’m not the only one who gets tripped up every once in a while. In a recent thread, strangers shared the seemingly minor situations that they find challenging.
Small social rules people struggle with
In the r/CasualConversation subreddit, user eiacesque recently asked, “What’s the tiniest social rule that feels absolutely impossible for you to follow?” And the answers, as one user put it, are “painfully relatable,” including whether or not to “tell the truth” when asked “How are you?” I always feel a little paralyzed with indecision—do I tell you the actual truth, which feels like TMI, or give a lame non-answer? Someone echoed my feelings here: “‘How are you?’ is either a one-word lie or a 3-hour emotional documentary.”
Here are some other popular answers to the prompt:
– “See a line of 3 people or more people walking side to side coming towards me on a small/ narrow street or path, I am not moving out of the whole crowd’s way or waiting for them to pass. I say excuse me and continue along my way. I don’t go out of my way to do this, but walking in 3+ on a short path is rude”
– “Whenever someone asks me ‘what’s new with you?’ my mind blanks. I can’t think of anything at all. Meanwhile, I got a new puppy, lost my cat, my kids have done 3 awesome things, concerts, awards etc., I had a birthday and my dad had a major surgery that I’m still worried about… And I’ll say something like ‘I saw on this cooking show that you can make French toast in an air fryer, or was it waffles? Maybe pancakes? Anyway there’s this cool way to make some breakfast food in an air fryer, or wait a slow cooker maybe?’”
– “If I can’t interrupt you when I get excited (and vice versa), I really don’t even want to chat with you.”
– “Just general small talk. If it’s not a shared interest it is nearly impossible for me to fake interest in what they have to say. I know it makes me come off as an a**hole, but I don’t know how to get me interested in the conversation.”
– “Spontaneously chatting with acquaintances. I see them out in public and go the other way”
“Congrats, you’re ‘buddy’ forever now”
Then there’s the top-voted response: “[A]sking someone’s name a third time. Congrats, you’re ‘buddy’ forever now.” Looks like many of us struggle to remember people’s names. “If people would just wear name tags for the first few times I met them, I’d be set,” one person wrote. “My problem is compounded by a certain degree of face blindness. Not only did I call my next-door neighbor the wrong name for three solid years until I received a piece of his mail one day, I flat-out didn’t recognize him when we bumped into each other at the grocery store.”
In a very underrated reply, someone added, “Honestly, I’d fully support mandatory name tags for the first three meetings. My brain does a full factory reset the moment someone turns around.” Lots of teachers weighed in with their name-memory struggles, including one who sat two of his students, Elizabeth and Melissa, next to each other so he could think of Allman Brothers Band songs. Incredible.
This anecdote brings to mind the hilarious story where someone, on the first day of their new job, walked into a coffee shop, placed an order, and had the barista mistakenly call them “Kevin”—a problem that continued because the customer was too embarrassed to correct them.
