“大型社会性死亡现场”是什么梗？ A Theory of Awkwardness

近两年，“社会性死亡”这个词渐渐风靡。它说的是当众出丑以至于没脸见人的状况。

清华大学《清新时报》报道称，豆瓣ID“@嘿嘿嘿嘿嘿嘿嘿”的用户在小组发帖分享一件自己“社会性死亡”的事件。

楼主给毕业论文导师发了消息，收到了老师“之后见了再说”的回复，心中纳闷。回头再一看，才发现自己的信息最后一句话是——“您是否有实力当我的毕业设计老师呢？”

而她本想打的，是“时间”。

尴尬事件或许是必然会发生的，但是随之而来的巨量尴尬却不会随着事件的结束而消退，反而会不断地在接下来的数年甚至数十年里随机浮上心头，让人痛苦“重温”。

可能有些读者光是看到本文这个标题就已经开始不由自主地回忆起尴尬瞬间了。

这些常见的尴尬，或许你也有过：

▌Secretly trying to take a picture of someone when the flash on your phone is on
打算偷偷拍一张别人的照片结果闪光灯没关

▌Waving at someone who doesn’t see you
向某人挥手，结果他没看见你

▌Trying to get your teachers’ attention in primary school by accidentally calling them mommy or daddy
小学的时候为了引起老师的注意而把他们叫成了“爸爸”或者“妈妈”

▌Texting one of your friends about a certain person before sending it to that person by mistake
发消息给朋友聊关于另外一个人的事情，结果直接发给了这个人

▌Going to open a door by pulling it when it clearly says “push”
想去拉开门，发现上面写着“推”

▌Being out in public and tripping over some thing before trying to act casual as if it never happened
在公众场合绊了一跤，然后假装如常无事发生

▌Bumping into someone as you leave the toilet with a really bad smell coming out of it.
上完厕所在隔间外撞见正要进去的人，结果厕所里的味道臭得不行

▌Entering a lecture hall, sitting down, and taking out all of your stuff before finally looking up to realize you’re in the wrong class.
进入教室，坐下来，把上课用的东西全部拿出来，结果发现进错了教室

▌Sitting in a quiet study room with your stomach sounding like it’s trying to digest a tractor engine.
坐在一个安静的自习室里，然后肚子饿得叫，像是它在消化一个拖拉机发动机一样

▌Creeping on someone’s Wechat moments and accidentally liking a photo from three years ago.
偷偷翻阅某人的微信朋友圈，然后不小心给一张三年前的照片点了赞

▌Holding a handrail on a bus or train and touching someone else’s hand in the process.
在公交或列车上抓扶手，结果不小心碰到别人的手

▌Asking someone to repeat themselves before asking twice more, and when you still haven’t heard what they’ve said, you just have to reply with “yes” and hope for the best.
请某人重复说过的话，发现没听明白叫人再重复一次，结果还是没听清楚，就只能回复“嗯”然后期望对话还能顺利进行

▌Saying something to someone and your voice breaks weirdly like a 13-year-old going through puberty halfway through the sentence.
跟某人说话，结果嗓子像是一个 13 岁的正在经历青春期变声的小孩一样，话说到一半就破音了。

作家Melissa Dahl花了数年时间研究“尴尬”，出版了书籍Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness (《令人尴尬：尴尬的理论》)。

起初，她发现自己每次叠衣服的时候都会想起十年前当实习生的时候被人笑话裙子在上完厕所之后塞到连体袜里的尴尬瞬间。

In my apartment ten years later, I know I’m far away in space and time from this moment, and yet it still makes me wince. “How embarrassing,” I whisper, out loud, to no one.
十年后，我住在这间公寓里，我知道无论是空间上还是时间上来说，我距离那个尴尬时刻已经很远了，但是我还是会紧皱眉头尴尬不已。周遭无人，我会大声在心里吼出来：“好尬啊！”

So many people I interviewed confess to reacting to old embarrassments in the same way. “You’re just sitting there, and your brain decides to throw it in your face for no reason,” one of my interviewees told me. “For me, if I’m alone, I just start shouting, ‘NO! No no no no no no no.’”
很多我采访过的人都承认会有跟我一样的面对过往尴尬的反应。有个受访者跟我说：“你就是坐在那儿，然后你的脑子莫名其妙就决定要把这份尴尬扔你一脸。我自己的话，如果我是一个人待着，那我就会开始咆哮：‘不！不，不，不，不要’”。

经过采访众多有类似经历的人和心理学家们，她给这种状况起了个名字：cringe attack（尴尬侵袭）。

They’re the little humiliations from your past that come back unbidden, sometimes years after they first occurred.
这些过往的丢脸时刻就是会像不速之客一样直接袭来，有时是发生后的很多年后。

这些记忆虽然很尴尬，却不至于到了引起心理创伤的地步，可是为什么这些记忆总是随机涌现呢？Mellisa 发现有三个原因。

❶ 有诱因

For one, even memories that seem out-of-the-blue may be in fact triggered by something in the environment. Maybe something about the T-shirts I was putting away that day reminded me of the feel of the jersey skirt.
一方面，即使是那些看似突如其来的记忆，实际上也可能是由环境中的某些东西触发的。也许那天我收起来的T恤衫让我想起了那条掖进裤袜里的运动衫裙。

❷ 尴尬情形未能在当时解决

For another, think about how often your first response to someone who’s witnessed an embarrassing moment of yours is something like “This isn’t what it looks like” or “I can explain.” If you never actually get to make that explanation, the moment likely feels unresolved in your mind, and some researchers believe that interrupted moments stick with us longer than those that feel completed.
另一方面，想想你对目睹你尴尬时刻的人的第一反应经常是“噢不是你看到的那样”或者“啊容我解释一下”。如果你从来没有机会解释，那么你的大脑就会觉得这个事儿还没解决，而且有些研究人员认为，被打断了的时刻比那些感觉完成了的时刻更加会让我们难以忘怀。

❸ 情感越浓，记忆越深

Your emotions dictate what your brain decides to hang on to. The stronger the feeling, the stronger the memory. For instance, being scolded even inadvertently can still lead to long-term feeling of awkwardness. Something excites your brain, which triggers the release of adrenaline, which in turn releases another substance called noradrenaline（去甲肾上腺素）, a neurotransmitter that then perks up the amygdala（杏仁体）.
你的情绪决定了你的大脑选择记住什么。情绪越强烈，记忆就越深刻。例如，即使有人不是故意骂你，你仍然会长时间感到尴尬。某件事刺激了你的大脑，触发肾上腺素的释放，而肾上腺素又会释放出另一种叫做去甲肾上腺素的物质，这种物质是一种神经递质，能使杏仁体活跃起来。

That’s a region of the brain which gets excited by emotional arousal. The amygdala then communicates with almost every other region of the brain, and it says, in effect, “Something important happened. Make a strong memory.”
杏仁体这个大脑区域会因情绪激动而兴奋。它与大脑的几乎其他所有区域进行交流，它实际上就是在说：“要紧的事儿发生了，给我记牢了！”

书籍作者同时也给出了两个点子，或许可以帮助你减轻这种困扰。

第一个就是接纳自己：

self-acceptance
自我接纳。

Recognizing your former self for who you truly were, instead of trying to forget or fudge the details. And remind yourself that everyone’s embarrassed about something. When we arrive at this kind of self-awareness, then when we fail, it’s not ‘poor me,’ however, it’s ‘Well, everyone fails.’
认清以前的自己是个什么人，不要试图忘记或篡改事件细节。告诉自己：每个人都有各自尴尬的事情。有了这种意识，我们即使尴尬了，也不会可怜自己说：“啊我好倒霉”，而是会说：“哎，大家都有尴尬的时候”。

第二个就是不要把自己看得太重要：

self-indifference: the relief of realizing that you are simply not that big a deal
自我疏离：意识到自己并没那么重要从而感觉到解脱。

倒也不是说要贬低自己，而是换一种思维来体会谦卑。

Self-indifference is essentially a synonym for humility. A little humility helps you keep your natural talents and honed skills in proper perspective: The fact that I’m able to string coherent sentences together as a professional writer isn’t valuable because of what it says about me. What matters is what I do with that ability.
自我疏离本质上是谦卑的同义词。谦虚一点可以帮你理性客观地看待自身的才华和磨练出的技能。比方说，我作为一个职业作家，我能够写出连贯的句子，这个技能本身并不重要，它无法给我贴金，重要的是我用这个能力创造了什么。

最困扰你的尴尬事件是什么呢？分享出来或许就不那么尴尬了。

Notes

trip [trɪp] v 绊；绊倒
tractor [ˈtræktər] n 拖拉机
cringe [krɪndʒ] v 感到尴尬不安；畏缩
wince [wɪns] v 皱眉蹙额
unbidden [ʌnˈbɪdn] adj 未经要求；未被邀请；擅自
out of the blue 出乎意料；突然；晴天霹雳
perk up（使）振奋，活跃，快活
in effect 实际上；事实上
fudge [fʌdʒ] v 伪造或歪曲；逃避（某事）；回避

编辑：李雪晴 左卓
参考来源：The Cut