I think I just realized that part of my anxiety with being in public is that I feel like I don’t have the same right to use public spaces as other people do. Like they’re the real People Who Use This Coffee Bar. And when I try to use it as someone who is not Inherently Worthy Of Using The Coffee Bar I’m just getting in their way
Anxiety will really have you getting imposter syndrome over things like *checks notes* drinking free community coffee
ALT
Exactly
the sign of being an adult who actually remembers what childhood was like
and also remembers how the shift from that to being a grownup was a slow gradient and not a moment
there is not a fundamental clear line between you and the child who was never taught all the rules or exactly when and where each one applies, but still got yelled at for not following them all perfectly
it’s all differences of degree
you have less of that in your life now… but the amount is never zero, and you don’t know where that nonzero is gonna turn up, and deep down you are conscious of this
idk it’s basically zero as an adult.
you can get away with a crazy amount of norm-breaking because literally everyone is conflict avoidant. no joke, you can actively be a menace to society, and as long as you wrap it in the aesthetic of politeness, people will just let it happen. 99% aren’t able to resolve the contradiction because they have a playground understanding of social dynamics.
living in a city is is just constant improv scenes. the rules are made up, and the points don’t matter. be whimsical and free.
Eh, it really really depends on where you work.
I don’t think my social anxiety will ever recover from the job I had in Pennsylvania, where basically no one was conflict avoidant, and everyone had shit-tier theory of mind where they fully expected everyone to be fully cognizant of bizarre rules that no one could possibly figure out by intuition, and “asking questions” and “not asking questions and guessing wrong” would both get you screamed at for being stupid.
But then I already had a low tolerance for criticism. so maybe the only way to survive that job untraumatized would have been to be born in Pennsylvania
ALT