You leave your dorm, skipping merrily to class. The weather is perfect today; a brisk 58 degrees, and you're loving the chai latte you picked up at Brown and Brew earlier that morning. Nothing could possibly get in your way today, not when you are in this good of a mood.
As you walk into your class and sit down in your typical seat, you begin to feel a slight anxiety. People look at you strangely, and keep their distance. Some chuckle cruelly to the person sitting next to them, and point at you while others whisper in hushed tones of deceit. Did you do something wrong? All of a sudden, the seat itself doesn't feel the way it did yesterday: colder, and closer. You look at the window to the right of you and see a faint reflection - oh dear god. You're completely naked.
We've all had this dream before. Naked. In public. People. Laughing. My systolic over diastolic increases just thinking about it. We sit up in bed, breathing heavily and somewhat wetter than we were several hours ago.
Some dream experts describe it as being just a manifestation of our fears...a reflection of our vulnerability and shamefulness. The fact that being afraid expresses itself in an embarrassing dream should be enough to prove that being in these uncomfortable situations is in fact our biggest fear.
So why are we so afraid of embarrassment? Maybe it dates back to the biblical times of Adam and Eve when we got that sudden realization that it's really not cool to be naked. One way or another, in our typical day-to-day hustle and bustle, we find ourselves taking careful precaution so as not to embarrass ourselves. We may not really notice it because it's become such a natural part of our routines, but seriously-take a moment to think about what you do every morning, and how you literally go out of your way to avoid embarrassment. Take my morning for example.
My earliest class is at 9:30 three days a week. Yes, lucky me. At the beginning of the school year, I found myself waking up literally twenty minutes before the class started, giving me just enough time to put on my clothes, make my bed, brush my teeth, and make my hair look mildly normal.
Before I could blink twice, or in my case, say "Hello, I am an American student attending Tufts University" in Russian once, my system failed me miserably. I found myself sleeping through my alarm, waking up at 9:27, not getting dressed, not making my bed, and barely making it into class five minutes into the lecture.
This may perhaps be one of the most embarrassing things I've ever had to go through. I worried that the teacher thought I was bored, I worried that the students thought I didn't care, and I worried that someday I'd miss some vital information causing me to totally self-destruct or self-implode, or maybe just self-loathe.
Being the sensitive type, I tend to avoid these sorts of repercussions. As a result, I've had to wake up an hour and a half in advance for this class. Big deal, you think. Well, losing an hour and half of sleep is a big deal, especially when the aforementioned class is only five minutes from my room.
Another interesting place to observe aversion to embarrassment is in the dining hall: girls and guys alike will be very careful about what food they eat to avoid discomfiture. How totally awkward is it to pass a guy you think is really cute when you've got three slices of pizza, a bowl of cereal, a piece of pie, and a chocolate milk on your tray?
Let's not even begin to delve into the morning routine-spending those precious morning minutes we could have been sleeping posing in front of a mirror making sure that the brown in our pants doesn't clash too much with the darker brown on our jackets.
In asking several people how they feel about being embarrassed, most just look at me like I'm from Mars and tell me they'd rather be at the dentist. One interesting response came from freshman Jackie Thomas. "I was always very freaked out about being embarrassed," she told me on the way to Carmichael, "so I did Jumbo Idol."
Apparently, in order to conquer her fear of being ashamed, Thomas embarked on a mission so utterly reprehensible that nothing could ever be worse: to sing in public. Since then, Jackie has conquered her fear.
What a great idea, I thought. We should all try to embarrass ourselves so unreservedly, so totally, that it would never haunt us ever again. Imagine how unbelievably freeing that would be! I would interrupt a wedding to ask where the bathrooms are! I would call someone named Mr. Dumas Mr. Dumbass! I would walk into Newberry Comics asking where all their comics went! I would reverse the names of two [very different] Asian students in your hall!
I don't know about you, but when someone embarrasses themselves, I laugh. And not because I think they're weird, but because I think we're all sharing in the experience of creating awkwardness and laughing together. If you think of embarrassment this way-of just entertaining others (and not at any expense, mind you), you will never be afraid again.
Next time you find yourself actually caring if people have seen you wear those same jeans the last several days in a row, stop. Laugh. And don't be afraid.
