I noticed a trend in some online interview show recently where hosts ask guests to bark like a dog. I really bristle at that, it would be tough to convince me you don’t want to just laugh at me.
I went to Ren Faire for the first time recently, and had a hard time picking an outift to wear because I didn’t want to stand out as no-fun, or as being enthusiastic but failing in execution. once I was there of course it was easy to see what an appropriate outfit is.
anyone had similar experiences/thoughts? I realized that I’m averse to being intentionally silly.
it feels like I’ve had to work hard in my life to not be unintentionally silly or weird (masking), so situations that ask “hey, be weird” leave me very guarded at first.
The whole time reading the post I was thinking “that sounds like my masking”, so yeah, i struggle with that too. I have very high expectations of myself in social contexts, and I am extremely harsh whenever I do something I consider a faux pas or a “social mistake”, just beating myself over the head with negative thoughts. This includes a very cringy moment of my youth where i was being “performatively weird”, imagine rawr XD but more dudebro nerd coded, and how much i just hated myself the whole time.
I will never forget that moment in 1st/2nd/3rd grade during music class. We were split into groups and everyone had to come up with a dance and the group would copy. Then it was my turn to do a dance.