Melissa Dahl - Cringeworthy: a theory of awkwardness

How come no one here likes Hanson?!! I exclaim weakly. Im reading aloud from a small spiral-bound notebookdark neon purple with multicolored swirls and starspurchased for $6.99 at a Claires in 1997. It is my seventh-grade journal, and Im reading it now, twenty years later, to three people I only met this morning. Ive been getting pictures of them off the Internet almost all day today and theyre so cute! How could anyone not like them?

I stop and look up from the journal. I feel like I should note that every time I write to, its the number and not the word, I say to my audience. All four of us are seated in armchairs near the bar at Littlefield, a performance venue in Brooklyn. Before today, Ive only been here at night, and its a little disorienting to see it in the muted light of a sunny January afternoon, though this is by far the least surreal aspect of whats happening right now.

The three strangers listening to me read are Stephen Chupaska, a bespectacled man with floppy brown hair and a skinny scarf, both of which he has a habit of tossing back with a flourish; Christina Galante, a woman with a wry smile and animated eyes who is taking notes on a laptop as I speak; and John Dorcic, an affable, extroverted guy with a neatly groomed goatee. They are producers for the New York City branch of Mortified, a live show in which performers read from their teenage diaries. Onstage. In front of hundreds of people. I think Ive had a version of that nightmare before, but in it I was only physically naked, not emotionally so.

This is my audition for a spot in the show later this year, and I feel like Im maybe blowing it. The word audition is in quotes because Ive been instructed by Dave Nadelberg, the creator of Mortified, not to call it that. It isnt one, not really, because anyone brave enough to volunteer to be in this show is welcome to participate, provided they have enough material they created during their teenage years for a ten-minute piece. But Im skeptical about my chances. Ive spent the last two hours sitting in on a curating session, to use Nadelbergs preferred term, and Im in awe of the people Ive seen already today. True, a lot of its been silly. One guy ended every journal entry with a detailed description of everything he wore and everything he ate that day, plus a signature daily sign-off: PEACE, one love. But most of what Ive heard today has suggested the beginnings of some real artistic talent. Earlier this morning, a woman read poetry she wrote in high school, which Galante, the shows lead producer, rejected because it was too good. I do not expect to encounter that problem.

At my 2, not to explanation, the three producers nod politely, then indicate that I should keep going. I take a shaky breath and continue reading the March 7, 1998, entry, cringing harder with every word. What am I gonna do? I have to call long distance if I want to talk about Hanson!

I pause again. Its an unseasonably warm day, but somehow I dont think thats why Im sweating. This is so ridiculous, I say. None of this seems usable. Is any of this usable? I justI dont want to waste your time, and I really respect the show and what you guys do

Galante cuts me off. We wont know if its usable unless you keep going, she says, raising her eyebrows at me over her laptop.

Later all three of them will swear Im the most tense, tight-lipped participant theyve ever had. I start reading an entry and then decide its too stupid to keep going, so I flip ahead and try another, only to abandon that one just as quickly. I stammer, I blush, I start sweating so much I have to remove the olive-green jacket Im wearing, though its too latethere are telltale wet spots under the arms, two large circles now colored a slightly darker olive green. You idiot, I think. Wearing dark colors to hide nervous underarm sweat was something you came up with in middle school. The kid who wrote this diary is smarter than you.

But in my own defense, it makes sense that Im more hesitant than a typical Mortified performer. Im not a performer. Its not like Im auditioning because Im dying to read my middle-school journal in front of hundreds of strangers; even just these three are a little much for me. Im only doing this for research.

BY THE TIME I AUDITION FOR MORTIFIED, Ive been officially studying awkwardness for the better part of two years; unofficially, for the better part of three decades. (They do say to write what you know.) Most of us went through an awkward stage, and I am no exception. I had a somewhat unique experience growing up in that my family moved every two years or so, which meant the second I got the hang of cool at one school, wed leave for another town, and usually another state. Awkward moments inevitably ensued every time I had to play the new kid, and I quickly learned that what is acceptable at one school will be roundly mocked at another. You could love Hanson in Nashville in 1998, but in Chicago youd better learn to like the Backstreet Boys. You could wear Clueless-style kneesocks in southern Louisiana in the early 2000s, but in northern California youd be side-eyed for clinging to a pass trend. Every young person is hyperaware of social rules, but learning different ones over and over as I grew up made me even more sensitive to moments that deviate from the norm. And perhaps more prone to causing them.

Anybody who writes for a living ends up writing what they know, whether they mean to or not, but the truism tends to be rather literal when your subject is psychology, a field Ive reported on for the last ten years. The best thing about this job, an old boss used to say to me, is that we dont just get to ask interesting questions. We get to find the answers too. She and I shared a predilection for oddball queries about the human experience: Why do so many of us hate the sound of our own voices? Why does remembering something stupid I said or did years ago still make me blush today? And what could possibly be the point of feeling embarrassed on behalf of people Ill never meetlike the cast and crew of La La Land when they accepted the Best Picture Academy Award (which actually belonged to Moonlight)? In these cases, my former managers words turn out to be only half true. They are interesting questions, but I couldnt find a satisfying answer to explain why each of these things made me cringe; nothing like a Unified Theory of Awkwardness appeared to exist in the scientific literature. And so I set out to create my own.