Have you ever had a painful social experience that you couldn’t get out of your mind? Of course. All Shys have. That’s one of our specialties. You go over and over what he said, what you said, then what he said again, then what you said… ad nauseam. Every time you run the scenario through your mind, it’s worse than the last.
My best friend in boarding school, although exceedingly attractive, was an expert at that. In spite of her beauty, she was incredibly shy, just like me.
Our girls’ school had a monthly mixer with a nearby boys’ school. Of course, Stella and I always hung around the sidelines trying to look cool and disinterested. A lot of the girls were eyeing a really hot guy named Shawn. Over the summer, he had broken up with the most popular girl in our class—much to the delight of the school’s entire female population.
At the first dance of the year, during our “who cares about boys” charade, Shawn smiled at Stella from across the room. He then came over and mimicked a deep bow. “May I have the pleasure of this dance, Madam?” Stella gulped.
Shawn must have noticed her reeling from the shock because he smiled, gently took her hand, and guided her to the dance floor. I ducked behind a pillar to spy on them.
During the dance, he noticed someone over her shoulder. Apologetically, Shawn excused himself. Stella’s face dropped like a fallen soufflé. She quickly scurried over to me. “Leil, we are getting out of here.”
“What?”
“Now! Right now!”
All the way back to the dorm, Stella was in misery. She whined, “I just knew he’d be turned off. I was boring him. He was just being kind to someone who looked lonely. He was just doing his good deed for the week, dancing with a dog to try to make her feel better. He probably already has a new girlfriend and didn’t want her to see him dancing with anyone attractive. Maybe he….” To Stella, the whole encounter was a disaster.
Individuals with high levels of social anxiety often experience numerous highly intrusive and interfering thoughts about past unsatisfactory social events, which lead them to recall the events as more negative than they were.8
—JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH THERAPY
Several weeks later, we were scarfing down hot fudge sundaes at the counter of the local drugstore. Suddenly, Stella turned as white as a ghost and swiveled her stool toward me so that her back was to the door.
“Stella, what’s the matter?”
“Shh. Keep your voice down. He just walked in.”
“He who?! What he?”
“Him, Shawn—the guy who stranded me on the dance floor.”
I looked over Stella’s shoulder and, sure enough, Shawn was making a beeline toward Stella. As he came closer, he put his finger to his lips to signal me not to tell Stella.
Shawn gently tweaked her ponytail. “Hey, pretty girl, what happened to you at the party?”
Stella was speechless, so I filled in, “Uh, shortly after you left, we had to, uh, be somewhere by, uh, eight-thirty.”
Shawn was surprised. “I didn’t leave. I spotted a buddy giving me the fish eye because I owed him ten bucks, so I went over to pay him back and restore his faith in humanity.”
He lowered his voice and smiled at Stella. “Then I went to the buffet table to get us both a snack. When I came back, you were gone.” He put his hand on his heart and bent his head in mock despair.
I looked at my watch. “Oh my goodness, look at the time! I have to go now or I’ll be late for my appointment,” I lied.
“Uh, what appointment?” Stella stuttered.
Dummy! “Oh you know.” But, of course, neither of us did.
A few hours later, Stella sailed into our dorm room and started dancing. She told me Shawn had asked her out for the following Saturday night.
Unfortunately, Stella’s happiness didn’t last long. She and I were eating lunch with a girlfriend a few weeks after she’d met Shawn. Megan hadn’t seen Stella since she started dating Shawn, so she was dying of curiosity. Despite heavy questioning, Stella insisted that she didn’t remember how they met and finally snapped at Megan.
When we were back at the dorm, I asked Stella, “Why didn’t you want to tell Megan about how you and Shawn met?”
“Leil, I told the truth. I really don’t remember the details.”
“Well, what do you remember?”
She thought for a minute. “Well, I remember that he left the dance before us.”
Now I was relentless. “Why? Why do you think he left?”
“I dunno, I guess he was just bored and didn’t want to dance with me anymore.”
“Stella,” I shouted, “Don’t you remember the buddy he owed ten bucks to? Of course he liked you. He asked you out.”
Stella rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but I don’t know how long that will last.”
My friend was hopeless. Like a typical Shy, she didn’t even remember the pleasant parts, only the painful ones. Sadly, she would rerun it in her mind so often that she convinced herself that she acted badly. And that is the only part she’ll ever remember.
Individuals suffering from social phobia remember negative experiences longer than positive experiences.9
—SOCIAL PHOBIA: CLINICAL AND RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES
The “negative perception” plot thickens. Not only do Shys fathom rejection when there is acceptance, they don’t remember social situations accurately. Looking back, they see monsters that never existed.
Shy subjects recall a pleasant social situation more negatively than it was.10
—JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH AND THERAPY
Even Shy toddlers have fuzzy negative recall of things. In a study called “Individual Differences in Children’s Eyewitness Recall: The Influence of Intelligence and Shyness,” teachers rated kids separately on intelligence and on shyness.11 Then the children all went off to a birthday bash for one of their classmates. It was a real kid-pleaser: balloons, birthday cake, presents, singing “Happy Birthday”—the works.
A week later, researchers tested the kids to determine how much they remembered about the party. They asked each one: “What did the cake look like? What games did you play? Did you have a good time?” The researchers even threw in a few ringers, like “What happened when the poor clown dropped the ball?” But there had been neither a clown nor a ball at the party.
The results: Intelligence had very little to do with the accuracy of the kids’ recollections. The deciding factor was how confident they were. The self-assured kids remembered the events far more enjoyably and accurately than the Shy tykes. The Shys concentrated on negatives, especially those involving themselves. It’s as though the Sure kids viewed the pleasant party through clear glass and the Shys saw it through a dirty mirror. Their own pessimistic self-image blocked the view.
Subjects with Social Anxiety Disorder often forget or distort pleasant experiences.12
—JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH THERAPY
That study could have added four words: “Even when they’re kids.”
Shy adults do the same. The more you think back on an event, the worse it gets in your memory. The best way to remember something accurately is to write it down before your cynical imagination gets carried away. That way, you’ll have an objective account of what really happened.