What to do when you feel like everyone is looking at you
We all know the feeling of thinking that everyone is looking at you.
Whether walking into the wrong room and it’s full of strangers, or dropping something in a dead-quiet church, or showing up for the first day of work at a new office with your morning coffee spilt down your previously clean shirt, it can feel like a massive spotlight has just been turned on and we’re standing in its full blast.
We might as well be naked, while everyone around us points, smirks, and passes comments.
It’s the worst. How will we ever recover? We can always find a new job, move to a new country, get facial reconstruction surgery, we suppose. Probably quite the waste of money, but what other options do we have?
Well, it turns out that we can acknowledge the truth of what actually happens in those moments in the VAST majority of occasions.
And that is:
Nothing.
Because:
Nobody thinks about you as much as you do.
Over 20 years, psychology researchers conducted a series of experiments that revealed something called the Spotlight Effect.
The spotlight effect, as researched by Thomas Gilovich and his colleagues, refers to the tendency of individuals to overestimate the extent to which others notice and remember their appearance and behavior in social situations.
In other words, people tend to believe that they are the primary focus of attention in a given situation when, in reality, others are likely not paying as much attention as they think.
One of the key studies involved participants wearing embarrassing T-shirts. The researchers asked college students to wear T-shirts featuring a large image of either Barry Manilow or Jerry Tarkanian, two figures that the researchers decided had potential to evoke embarrassment.
Copacabana wasn’t that bad. But I digress.
The participants were then asked to estimate the percentage of those they had come across that day who would notice and remember the image on their T-shirts.
The study revealed a consistent pattern of overestimation. Participants consistently believed that a much higher percentage of their peers noticed and remembered their embarrassing T-shirts than was actually the case.
People tend to magnify the social significance of their own actions, and assume a level of attention from others that just isn’t true.
We all make ourselves the heroes of our own stories. It’s natural, because it’s how we make sense of the world around us. But because of that fact, it means we think about ourselves a lot. That’s not to say we’re these self-obsessed monsters, but it does mean that everyone is experiencing the majority of their encounters with others through their own references.
And as they do that, they have less capacity to notice your t-shirt, or pimple, or ketchup stain down your chest. And even if they do notice it, they’re unlikely to hold onto that bit of information for any length of time because why are they going to choose thinking about your eating habits when they have a mortgage payment coming up, two sick, screaming kids or an overbearing boss to worry about?
They won’t. You don’t, do you?
The same researchers went on to reveal a further cognitive bias called the Illusion of Transparency. This refers to the tendency of people to overestimate the extent to which their internal thoughts, feelings, or emotions are apparent to others. In other words, people often believe that their internal states, or fears or thoughts, are more visible or noticeable to those around them than they actually are. And this can naturally contribute to self-consciousness and social anxiety.
It can lead us to believe that others are constantly internally criticizing and judging us. But in reality, they’re probably just thinking about their own shit, and really aren’t noticing anything going on with you.
Generally, people are not only not mind-readers, they’re not even thing-noticers most of the time. Including you.
Take the example of being on a first date, except you’ve recently had a set of invisible braces fitted. Things are going ok, but you’re convinced that your date is constantly staring at your teeth, judging you for having corrective dental work at your age. What kind of adult waits until they are in their 30s to even think about addressing something like that? They’re definitely not going to call you after this because you’re clearly a lost cause. You might as well just leave now, and take the lettuce that’s inevitably lodged in your teeth with you. Right?
Well, you’re also not a mind reader. You have no idea what your date might be thinking. And it’s probably more likely something like this: “Wow, I can barely even notice those braces. I always thought they’d be way more noticeable. I’ve got that gap on my bottom row that I hope they haven’t noticed yet. Maybe I should look into investing in braces at last. They’re clearly working for others…”
Just someone else thinking about themselves. And not you. Not in a selfish way, just in a very human way. Because they’re also just trying to make sense of the world around them. And they can only do that in the one way they know how: by experiencing the world through their own lens.
Nobody thinks about you as much as you do.
Once we realise this, and internalise it, it can become something of a super power. Perhaps it can give you the courage to get those Invisalign mouthguards you’ve been thinking about. Or to try out that new hairstyle you’ve seen on Insta. Or publicly post that article you’ve had saved in drafts for months or years.
Because no one really cares.
And in a world where no is going to care, why should you?