The Built-in Judge

Nobody else has to pass judgment on us. We handle that job ourselves. We're so worried about what other people are thinking that we race to say the harsh thing before they can. "This dress looks terrible on me, I really should have done something with my hair." "I'm hopeless at bowling, I knew I shouldn't have come along tonight."

Getting disliked or scolded feels so frightening that we beat everyone to it and criticize ourselves first. That gives us a buffer against a truth that may turn out to be far gentler than whatever we've imagined. And oddly, bracing for honest feedback cranks the anxiety up higher, not lower, the moment we sense it might actually be coming.

People who operate this way have a hard time taking in what others tell them about themselves, and they frequently feel misread. A person like this keeps guessing in advance how someone will respond to what they've done or said. When those guesses miss, they'll pester the other person until he admits he didn't really mean it, or until she concedes that she saw it their way after all. These confrontations go nowhere good. The other person's actual opinion stays put, and what's left is a relationship under strain or one that simply stops.

I've seen plenty of people land in group therapy over exactly this. They describe friendships and relationships that other people cut off, and they can't work out the reason. They were only kidding. The other person couldn't take a joke. A therapist softens the impact and helps the person finally hear, with some accuracy, how he or she lands on the people around them.

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