Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl of awkwardness.
You love these people (mostly), but the scripts are fuzzy. Do we hug? Do we talk politics? What do I say when someone hits me with the third “so, how’s work?” in an hour?
We tend to treat that discomfort as a “me” problem, like we’re bad at socializing or broken in some way.
Alexandra Plakias thinks that’s the wrong story. She’s a philosopher at Hamilton College and the author of Awkwardness: A Theory, and she argues that there are no awkward people, only awkward situations. Awkwardness, for her, is what happens when the unwritten scripts that guide our social life break down and we are suddenly improvising without a map.
I invited Plakias onto The Gray Area to talk about why awkwardness deserves philosophical attention and what it might look like to change our relationship to those cringey moments. The conversation was taped in 2024, but it seemed relevant as we all prepare to plunge into those delightful holiday conversations with friends and family.
As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, which drops every Monday, so listen and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you find podcasts.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How do you define awkwardness?
Let me start with what I think it isn’t. Awkwardness is not a personality trait. I don’t think there are “awkward people” in some deep way. When I was writing the book, people constantly said, “I am so awkward,” or “I cannot wait to read this; I am a very awkward person.” It’s a label people reach for very quickly.
In my view, awkwardness is a property of situations, not individuals. It happens when we don’t have the social resources we need to navigate an interaction. We don’t know which norms apply, which role we are playing, which role the other person is playing, or what kind of script we are in.
In that sense, awkwardness isn’t a “you” problem. It’s an “us” problem.
But some people clearly feel awkward more often than others. How do you explain that?
People definitely differ in their experience. Part of this is how we use language. If I say, “Sean is awkward at parties,” I might mean Sean feels awkward, or I might mean Sean makes me feel awkward. Those are two very different claims that often get blurred together.
Some people really struggle to read social cues. Others give cues that do not match what most people expect. Their eye contact is different. Their timing in conversation is slightly off. That can make the interaction feel jagged. But, that doesn’t mean we should reduce the whole thing to a personality label. Often, what’s really going on is that our scripts are misaligned. Blaming one person as “awkward” can obscure that.
And then, there are people who feel awkward all the time, because they’re hyper self-conscious. They’re running a little commentary in their heads, evaluating every move. That creates more awkwardness than the situation actually calls for.
Is awkwardness about being afraid of other people? Or is it something else?
I see awkwardness as closely linked to uncertainty. You don’t know what kind of situation you are in or how other people are reading you.
There’s a connection to social anxiety. Some people use “I am awkward” almost as a disclaimer. It lowers expectations. It’s a way of saying, “Please do not judge me too harshly in this domain.”
But, awkwardness itself is not always about fear. Sometimes the person everyone else experiences as awkward is totally fine. They’re not suffering. It’s the rest of us who feel off balance.
Where fear really comes in is in our fear of creating awkwardness. We are very motivated to avoid that. There are lots of cases where we know we should speak up or intervene, and we don’t, because we worry about making things weird.
After Me Too, for example, some men said they didn’t call out harassment at work, because it would have made things awkward. That’s a really striking admission. The discomfort of an awkward conversation outweighed the obligation to challenge serious wrongdoing.
So, awkwardness is tightly bound up with belonging. We want to be accepted. We want to stay inside the group. The risk of being seen as the person who “made it weird” can feel incredibly high.
Where does cringe fit into all of this? Are cringe and awkward the same thing?
I think of cringe as what happens after the fact. Awkwardness is in the moment. You’re standing there, trying to figure out what to do next.
Cringe is when you’re driving three days later and suddenly remember what you said, and your whole body tightens. It’s a very retrospective thing. It often attaches to awkward moments, but it’s not the same phenomenon.
We associate the two, because we tend to interpret awkwardness as shameful. We think, “That awkward moment showed everyone who I really am.” Then, we relive it and cringe.
If you shift the story to “that awkward moment showed something about the situation or the script,” the cringe can soften a bit. The memory is still uncomfortable, but it’s not such a deep indictment of you as a person.
What are some of the most common awkward moments in everyday life?
When you ask people, they often mention things like clogging someone’s toilet when you’re a guest in their home or sending a message to the group chat that was supposed to be about someone in that group chat.
There are also the classic physical misfires. One person goes in for a hug; the other offers a handshake. You both half switch midstream and end up in a strange, fumbling half-embrace.
Goodbyes at parties are a big one. Do you say goodbye to everyone, just the host, no one at all? If you do say goodbye, is it a hug, a wave, a handshake, a nod from across the room? That uncertainty about the script is what produces the awkwardness.
And then, there are more personal ones. You mentioned hating listening to your own podcast when other people are around. Many of us have some version of that. Being a “public self” in front of people you know can feel excruciating.
Why is small talk so painfully awkward?
Small talk is really a social tool, not a search for meaning. It’s a way of signaling, “We are on civil terms. I see you. You see me. This is friendly.”
That’s why topics like the weather, sports, or “how’s work?” are so persistent. They give you something low stakes to hang that interaction on.
Small talk becomes awkward when the nonverbal side doesn’t match. The other person is clearly checked out, or looking over your shoulder, or standing a strange distance away. The topic is still “so, how are things?” but the exchange feels off.
What do we lose when we’re too afraid of awkwardness, or when we go out of our way to avoid it?
We lose real connection, and we avoid important topics. Grief is a powerful example. Many people who are mourning say that friends and colleagues simply disappear — not because they don’t care, but because they don’t know what to say. And they don’t want to say the wrong thing, so they say nothing.
That’s a huge loss. Someone is going through one of the hardest experiences of their life, and the people around them are paralyzed by the fear of making it awkward.
Any tips for people looking to reduce the awkwardness in their life?
I don’t think the goal should be getting rid of awkwardness. Some hesitation and uncertainty is good; it gives us time to reflect before we slip into well worn but harmful scripts.
What we can do is change how we relate to it.
One thing is to practice admitting uncertainty. It’s okay to say, “I’m not sure what we usually do here, what do you prefer?” Rather than guessing and spiraling internally, you bring the question out into the open.
Another is to clarify your priorities. If you know that talking about politics at Thanksgiving will be awkward, decide in advance what your goal is. Do you want to stand up for someone? Do you want to preserve a relationship? Do you just want to avoid a screaming match? That clarity can guide how you respond, even when the conversation gets uncomfortable.
And then, there is simple exposure. The more you let yourself feel a bit awkward without treating it as a catastrophe, the less power it has over you. You start to think, “Okay, that was uncomfortable, but I survived. It did not define me.”