How I’d like to respond when someone asks me an innocuous question.
Rebecca
In the last two years, I’ve become a blusher. As in, a person who blushes. As in, without warning my body decides I’m embarrassed. I don’t even realize I’m uncomfortable until I’m trying to coax the blood away from the surface of my face by chanting “calm down, calm down,” and “what is wrong with you?”
It happened just the other night. I met an editor from Slate.com. I wasn’t intimidated or nervous or anything. Within seconds of our conversation beginning, however, my body got hot, my face got red, my eyes got shifty. Apparently, I was intimidated. I was nervous! I’d have never known if it weren’t for my face. (She would have never known either. Darn you face!)
It happens every so often and for no apparent reason. When my boss asked me about my day. When someone at church asked me about an old friend. When a sales rep asked me what I was looking for. When I realized I hadn’t buttoned up after breastfeeding and answered the door anyhow (just kidding on that last one).
I hate it, this unannounced blushing, and have since spent a fair amount of mental energy trying to psychoanalyze the whole thing.
I present my suspicions:
- I went to BYU. I loved that place, but I think four solid years of interacting with people who agree with me sort of scrubbed me down. I came out of there not sure how to have a conversation without asking someone “where they served” or, “what ward they were in” or, “did they know Sara Pratt?” Also, I was in my twenties and had never been to a bar.
- Right after I graduated, I spent six weeks living in the Bronx while training to be a teacher. My roommate was an atheist from Missouri who walked around our dorm room completely naked (sometimes with hot pink high heels on) and refused to flush the toilet because it was a waste of water. I loved her too, but suddenly finding myself living with a lot of people who almost completely disagreed with me? Perhaps the transition was too stark. I left there convinced that I didn’t have anything in common with anyone in the whole world.
- I think if I’d treated the situation immediately—had real conversations with adults, that sort of thing, I might have been okay. Instead, I took a job at a middle school in Washington Heights and spent my days with seventh and eighth graders who thought the answer to personal body odor was an entire bottle of Axe. I knew I was in too deep when, sitting on an airplane, I looked up at the in-flight movie (“Are we there yet?”) and without even thinking correctly identified Ice Cube as the star. What? Perhaps, I wonder, this fear I have that someone is going to call me a dirty name, throw a chair at me, and flip me off when I try assign him/her detention is teaching residue. At the very least, my first job out of college didn’t help me socially.
It was after I quit teaching that I noticed the blushing thing. I wasn’t ready for normal society. To complicate things, then I went and worked for really rich people (self explanatory) and then I started working for a one-year old who screams at me for the slightest misstep and thinks it’s socially acceptable to start licking my hand for no apparent reason.
I’m getting all awkward just thinking about it…
*I remember walking into a classroom the day after major legislation that I supported had passed. A student was holding up the NY Times article and asking every one in the room, “Can you believe there are actually people in this country who believe these thing?” “Freaks,” someone responded.
**I’d like to point out, to those who think my theories are bunk, that science hasn’t done any better.
24 comments
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April 22, 2009 at 3:38 am
kristen
How big is your blushing problem, really? There’s always this solution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endoscopic_thoracic_sympathectomy
Of course the procedure might result in extremely sweaty hands and I think it’s upwards of $16,000…
April 22, 2009 at 9:22 am
Marci
I too find myself with strange, uncontrollable physical reactions when presented with social situations. I have always been gregarious and friendly but now when I have a conversation with people I often find myself trying to look at anything but the person I’m talking with (I feel like I come off shifty-eyed), and I keep giving one of my best friends really stupid responses to our day-to-day conversations. At least you have delved far enough into the situation to find some root causes to your problem. Maybe my problem resides in my living in Washington Heights. Is there something in the water here that creates akward reactions to common situations?
April 22, 2009 at 9:31 am
Robin
In Sunday School, this week, the teacher called on me to answer a very easy question about something in which I am an expert. I stammered and blushed and said something goofy. It took me about 5-10 minutes to recover. Why? I am still asking myself, Why?
April 22, 2009 at 10:23 am
Melissa
I am in the process of making a similar self-diagnosis. I’ve always been a somewhat ready-blusher; but, in the last year, things have gotten a little ridiculous. This does happen to be the year I went back to teaching junior high, so I think you might be onto something there. Sometimes, I want to shout at myself, “Look, you’re the teacher here. You are absolutely not embarrassed. Please stop responding as though you were.” My own set of theories on the subject would be corroborated somewhat if I were to assume that you got married after you stopped teaching. The maddening thing about blushing is: the more you think about the problem, the more likely it is to continue.
April 22, 2009 at 10:38 am
leslie
Great post- I often wonder how our social environments prepare us or unprepare us for the next. If you watch various “groups” you see they all have their own social style and tricks- It’s hard as an outsider. I used to teach 6 hr college lecture courses and that cured me of ever feeling at a loss for words. But now as a blogger I sometimes find myself stammering, awkward. I think being LDS we get good at certain types of social but we’re generally bad at “country club style” social
April 22, 2009 at 11:15 am
Angie
You’ll appreciate this, Rebecca.
The other day Doug (boss) asked, “Angie, do you want to get lunch?” (as in go-get-me-some lunch) and I took it to mean that he wanted to go get lunch together. I know, I know, it’s a stretch, but he does it with Peter all the time and I thought that he had administrative things to discuss. A lunch meeting.
“Ugh, sure,” I said. “Today?”
I realized what he meant before I finished my words. And before I could take them back, the media analyst responded, “How very forward of you, Doug.”
Just when I was about to turn red (yes, this happens to me way too much), Doug turned bright red. Kool-aid red. Just stood there red faced, shaking his head. And I didn’t feel in the least awkward because he did! I had baffled but he took it! So bottom line, do what you can to get the other person to feel stupid. It will make you feel a lot better.
April 22, 2009 at 11:35 am
lisapiorczynski
Angie,
I LOVE this story. So horrible for all those invovled. Ugh. I’ve always been a big blusher, but I am slowly, slowly getting the hang of it. The key it to force yourself to feel bored/ indifferent. You need to find a boring place in your mind. (Which is what I do when I need to trick myself into crying. I usually end up at my mother’s funeral.) And change the dialogue from “That’s very forward of you” to “blah blah blah blah blah Lisa. Blah blah.”
April 22, 2009 at 11:36 am
Louise Plummer
I like the way you blush. It never comes off as awkwardness, but a charming enthusiasm. It’s a gift.
April 22, 2009 at 12:55 pm
smylies
Melissa, yes! Blushing is post marriage. Who knows?
Angie, I died at your comment. Very funny. I remember so well the day I asked Doug if I could talk to him. He told me I was making him nervous. “Why?” I asked. “Becuase your face is the color of your shirt.” he said.
And that’s when i told him I was pregnant. Anyway, lots and lots of blushing.
April 22, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Mehrsa
Ha! So funny.
This may be a race specific trait. I may be wrong here, but I don’t think people of color can blush. Maybe evolution took care of that for us. Does that mean we have progressed further? Discuss. Jk.
I once made a guy in the ward blush. I cannot for the life of me remember how. His face got bright red and I was SO embarrassed. I wanted to just ignore the whole thing and do that thing you are doing with your head there.
So…Dear White people, stop blushing. You make us very uncomfortable sometimes.
April 22, 2009 at 2:32 pm
sarahlolson
Mehrsa, I wish you would start more comments with “Dear White people…”
Maybe it’s an age + race thing? I definitely blush more now than I did as a kid. Kid = never. Now = I think I blushed once. Like three months ago.
And the link to the evolution article was genius. I told my roommate about this morning as she drove me to the metro. “We’re the only animals who blush,” I said. “Cool!” she said. “But then–aren’t we the only animals with skin like ours?” (Spoken like the buyer for a skin care company she is.) I sort of envisioned an experiment with shave-faced orangutans and beard-less bears and a whole lot of awkward set-ups involving bananas and steamy romantic scenes. PETA be darned. We have evolutionary theory to crack.
April 22, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Monica Merced Rich
See, and my problem is that I realize long after the fact that I should have been embarrassed.
April 22, 2009 at 4:11 pm
lisapiorczynski
Sarah,
I can’t wait to get the creepy “shave-faced orangutan” google searches.
April 22, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Traci
I completely agree with #1, I had never spent any time in Utah until I was eighteen and was very used to “Oh, wow, thanks for respecting my religion by not telling me Joseph Smith was a drunk or that I’m a member of a cult” That’s pretty much the best I had ever expected.
But after about four years here someone said @*!# in front of me and I turned bright red. What?!? I was hearing @*!# and %&$* and &!$% since I was kid at neighborhood barbeques and thinking nothing of it, and now I’m so sheltered I blush at a little four letter word? That I still say? I don’t understand it.
April 22, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Lauren K
Is blushing charming? That’s what I always tell myself when some cute boy is making me smile so hard my cheeks hurt and I just know my cheeks are ridiculous red (which sounds like a crayola crayon color … ) but perhaps, really, I just look like a smiling nut with ridiculous red cheeks … oi …
*Sarah — speaking of steamy romantic scenes for animals … http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,261569,00.html
April 22, 2009 at 5:56 pm
missy
Ok, I WISH I was only a blusher. I promise since I’ve had kids I am terrible at keeping an intelligent conversation. I stammer and pause and leave the conversation thinking the person must think I didn’t graduate high school.
Can you tell us more about the Slate Editor conversation??
April 22, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Petra
You want embarrassing? I blush at dirty jokes and risque innuendoes…including the ones that I make. Now there’s a habit I’d like to break.
(The jokes or the blushing, actually. Either way.)
April 22, 2009 at 8:40 pm
stannyann
Where is Lillie on this thread? She’s where I first even HEARD the idea that people didn’t want pretty rosy flushed cheeks on purpose. She marveled when I put on blush, I turned green when she flushed pink.
I like when you blush (which I’ve seen rarely. clearly I don’t have the potential to fluster like Louise does). But what I like even better than the blush is the accompanying body motion – a kind of open mouth laugh quick series of head turns… I can’t explain it but I love it.
April 22, 2009 at 10:35 pm
AMG
That’s funny, the exact opposite has happened to me. Explain Bex.
April 23, 2009 at 7:56 am
Sarie
When I blush I start to talk really fast and stare right into the person’s eyes thinking over in my head, “I’m not blushing”. The person usually looks away because I AM SO INTENSE. I hate it when people ask, “Are you blushing”? Like, no, I just got a two second sunburn. That will go away in three.
April 23, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Sara
Rebex- you gave me a shout out on the Apron Stage! I am totally blushing in a really flattered sort of way…
Stancliff – I know what you’re saying about her “open mouth laugh quick series of head turns” thing. It’s often accompanied by an “I know, right?” and I love it too. I don’t think I have ever known Rebecca McConkie to be anything but the picture of composure.
I wish I blushed more. I can’t believe how often I’ll be relaying a story to someone and they’ll say “That is SO embarrassing! Did you die???” and that is the first point at which I realize that I should have been embarrassed when it happened.
September 11, 2009 at 2:07 am
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September 14, 2009 at 2:22 pm
dennis
i know for a fact that people of color blush,i blush and i am brown skin you can see it. whites have told me for years that i blushed. i saw my face in the mirror and seen my face reddish- pink color. ihave seen one lady face turn maroon in the cheeks i saw another face turn a hot pink. isaw a bright skin woman cheeks turn pink. here is your evidence.
December 23, 2009 at 8:34 pm
jeff
I have gotten 15 out of 18 on the breif saocial phobia scale.