Let's set the scenario: we've just had a conversation with someone. Could be brief, could be lengthy - but we come away from it wondering how anyone could like us. I mean, some people can walk away from incidental encounters without giving it another thought. Then there's the rest of us - the introspection, the rumination, the negative self-talk all taking over to tell us what we did wrong. Tell us why we're less-than. Stupid me.

Turns out that's a common experience (1), and one that is much more closely tied to our subjective reality than the objective. It's called the "liking gap," that is, the difference between how we think we are perceived and what other people actually see.

The thing with social anxiety is that it often pervades every area of life, from work, to school, to church. Sometimes it's even there with our families - at home, where we should feel relief from the pressures of interaction. We feel consistently less-than, and we have what we consider to be reasons to feel that way. It's a form of impostor syndrome - I'm not who the other person would truly like to interact with right now. I'm the impostor trying to convince others I'm socially competent.

And then we also assume that other people around us are thinking the same things. "I can't believe he stumbled over his words." "Her hair was a mess today, why did she go out that way?" "Why did he keep talking so long?"

One rather simple problem with this stance is that we also assume some kind of forbearing politeness on the part of the other person. The fact is, most people are not nearly so polite. I don't know if you've spent time online lately, but people are generally either blunt or avoidant - rarely do people engage with someone they'd actually rather not talk with.

But the things we do and the mental machinations we go through to try to fit in! We do it all to avoid feeling that social anxiety - our longing is to feel like we belong, and like everyone around us believes that too. So there's two spheres where we need to talk about this gap.

First, let's talk about God - how do we bring the liking gap to God? Well, it's very easy to submit to confirmation bias in our self-talk. The path of least resistance for those who feel less-than is to function as if God, as glorious as he is, does not have the time of day for us. That his longsuffering allows him to tolerate us, but the material of the relationship between us can never be more than that.

It runs a bit deeper with God, though, because we know there's nothing hidden from his sight - no mask will paper over our social/relational shortcomings. We can pray for something, and then immediately think about how dumb it was to pray that. We can read passages of scripture, and then feel like we've missed something basic - this is where we're supposed to find God, but we can't hear his voice.

We get caught in a spiraling cycle of "what's the point? Why continue trying to relate if we'll never have more than that?" Christ in the Fog has a lot to say about getting to this point and having some guideposts to continue. What I'll say here, for now, is that God does not expect us to come up with an entire philosophy of human/divine relationship and how that works. Christ is not ashamed to call us part of the family.

And then there's the church. In some ways, church is easy because many of the interactions are scripted. Here's when you stand, here's when you sit. Everything is orderly and in its place. We can come in, follow the procedure, and sometimes leave unscathed.

Church is also hard for those of us in the fog - the reminder is always there of the liking gap we experience with God. It's a feeling of dissonance - we're there in church to celebrate being able to have relationship with God through Christ. We're grateful for salvation and looking forward to eternity, but we're not feeling the relationship right now.

Many of us have expressed some of these thoughts in church, in small group, in discipleship classes, and elsewhere. The answers are usually the same. First, make sure you're actually saved. Because that's what you were told to do last time, and the time before, and you thought you'd had it sorted out according to scripture. But maybe you missed something that time, and the time before, and maybe there's some mystical experience left that will fix all of this nonsense.

Okay, so not that so much. Salvation is salvation, and tying these types of struggles to that backloads the salvation question quite a bit. What's the next answer? Usually some form of "read your Bible and pray more." When the times we feel the liking gap with God the most are when we pray and read our Bibles, maybe that's not the most helpful answer either.

I'm going to argue that the solution to these problems is never immediate. If someone is experiencing this type of concern, we are quite often looking at a psychosocial issue - not so much a spiritual one. The journey then starts with awareness and continues with consistent, healthy relationship with other people. Faithful and mature Christians can identify with these struggles - we are not immune to the liking gap or the self-talk that fuels it.

Hebrews tells us to encourage one another day after day. That means taking the time to extract these types of issues and meet people where they are. Relating, instead of wishing people would just follow the same prescription as before and get better results. I wonder - if we actually did this, and didn't hide behind our particular masks, would the result be an experience of freedom for at least some of those who now walk in the fog?

References:

1 Robson, David. “Why You Make Better First Impressions than You Think.” BBC Worklife, 1 Oct. 2021, www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210929-how-the-liking-gap-fuels-social-anxiety.

2 "mind the gap" by osde8info is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0