Opposite George

Anyone familiar with the 1990's classic TV Seinfeld will of course be familiar with the concept of "Opposite George", but for the uninitiated allow me to explain.

One of the shows main characters George Costanza, is the epitome of every poor male stereotype known to man. He's cheap, shallow, unintelligent, lazy, bald and conventionally unattractive to boot. When consistent attempts to land him a girl worthy of his expectations fail, George decides that he is failing because of how he is conducting himself. He thinks that in every possible situation in life his instincts lead him to make exactly the wrong choice. So, he decides that for every impulse he has, he will do the exact opposite, and thereby get the exact opposite life to the one he has now.

Despite being fucking hilarious, I find myself thinking about this episode a lot more recently for another reason. I think there might be some wisdom in this approach. I of course don't mean applying it to every situation with the comedic effect seen on TV, but perhaps in some situations it may be beneficial.

I've been trying to make some more friends recently, and trying to become more social. As a career hermit this has been exceedingly difficult. Despite the occasional invite to thing be people I want to be friends with and have a friendly relationship with, I find myself constantly bullying myself into not participating.

They don't even want you there, they just invited you because they feel sorry for you

Why would they want to talk to you, you're boring and have no friends

They probably hate you, you've said you'd hang out with them and then never hit them up

Reading these after they've been written down really shows me how this logic is both incorrect, and bleeds into itself. I want to reach out, I convince myself people wouldn't want to hear from me, which makes them think I'm ignoring them, which makes them actually not care if they hear from me because they think I'm uninterested!

This is where Mr Costanza's brilliance comes in; I think I need to be more like Opposite George. When I have an urge to reach out to someone in my life I need to do so. I have a severe bias for inaction and overthinking. When I feel the negative thoughts entering my head about what other people want and don't want from me I need to strike them down and act anyway. The only person who can tell me they don't want to hang out with me is the other person. If I want to hang out with someone I need to ask. If I find someone at an event interesting and I want to talk to them, I need to do it. No hesitation. Dive in head first.

I also need to get better at recognizing when I'm getting under my own feet. The voice in your head is so gentle it's sometimes hard to separate thoughts from reality.

These days I feel like I'm living my entire life in my head. Deciding and not deciding what people may or may not say. Completely synthesizing my own human experience, and then becoming jaded at what people ARE NOT EVEN SAYING!!

This is because I am scared of being let down. That the worst is true. That I actually AM boring and that people actually do hate me. But that's the thing. Everyone I talk to seems to have a great time. Well, at the very least they don't have a bad time. My psychologist has even confirmed as much. She has told me that if she thought I had social issues she wouldn't encourage me to talk to people like she has.

All evidence points to me just being scared. This is totally valid. But the things I want from life; love, friends, community, are all blocked behind this fear and in order to live a life I want I have to take steps to overcome this.