The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Drkenner.com

Here's a situation where a person is doing just that. She's trying to figure out what's going on, screwy in her life, especially in the work situation. And we've all been in situations where there's been a clique, and we can't penetrate it. We're on the outside, and people just roll their eyes at you and don't like you, and you just... it's an awful feeling. So here's Corinne's question, here's her situation, and then a question.

Dr. Kenner, I am struggling to understand why people at work do not like me. I started a new job a year ago, and I was excited to meet new people. I'm friendly and initiate conversation with my coworkers, but my efforts are not well received. I seem to subconsciously turn people off, and I find myself repeatedly excluded. When new people join the company, they are walked around and introduced to everyone but me. I have no idea what's going on, but I continue to put up a confident front, even though I am an internal wreck. I have become fed up to the point that I'm looking for a new job. I was at a previous job for nine years, and I had a similar problem with my coworkers, but not to this degree. My fear is not that it is the workplace, it is me. The problem has left me feeling depressed, confused, and alone. Sincerely, Corinne.

Corinne, when I was in fifth grade, I was the shyest kid in a very popular group. I was in the clique. I was in the group, and I loved the group leader. She was charismatic, she was adventurous, she was funny, and she could be very cutting, very sarcastic at times. So not only did I love her and admire her, but I was terrified of her. We were friends. She just lived a few doors down from me, and we were in the same classrooms. This is grade school I'm talking about now, only it didn't feel like a mutual friendship. It felt like I was in a one-down position, and I kept myself there. I was shy. I didn't have the self-confidence to speak up for myself. Then I recall walking into the schoolyard one morning, and some of my friends refused to play with me. They told me—and I'll give her a name—that Sheila gave them a choice. This popular girl gave them a choice. They could be friends with her or with me, not both.

Now, let me tell you, I'd prefer to be friends with her than with the me back then. I was real shy. They told me that Sheila... that, that, that was the choice that she gave them, and they were sorry they couldn't speak with me anymore. Now, this was extremely baffling to me. I didn't know why I was shunned, and this lasted a few days until a teacher found out about it, and she called all the girls in and told them they can't keep ostracizing me, that they can never do that. They got, I guess, pretty much put in their place, and they stopped doing that. But I think it set me up to be more tentative in groups throughout my life.

Now you're in a similar spot. You reach out in a friendly manner, and you're repeatedly ignored. And it happens on two jobs, not just one job. Now the question is: Is it them or me? That's the very painful question, and how do you go about answering it?

Well, there are many times when it is them, not you. For an example, an excellent teacher, very dedicated to her job and very creative, meets up with or gets involved with a school that is more of the "Don't rock the boat" and "Yeah, we want all our vacations and more, and we want to get the kids out of here. We want to get them out of our hair." So she may be shunned because she doesn't fit the mold of the "Don't rock the boat" type teachers. In this case, she shouldn't go chasing after them. She should recognize that she's in the right; she's got much better standards than they do. She should take pride in herself and never appease people who are envious or lazy.

But let's assume, in your case, Corinne, that this is not the situation, that there is something that you're doing that's off-putting. Well, the best way to address this is to—

Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Well, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is: The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com, huh? The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting.

—There is something that you're doing that's off-putting. Well, the best way to address this is to gather facts and to face them openly. I went to a five-day intensive workshop with ten business leaders from around the country, about ten of them, and at the end of the week, after living with each other for five days, we gave each other very clean feedback. It wasn't dressed up or sugarcoated, and I learned some stuff about myself that I've always known implicitly, but it was really good. Well, this wasn't good stuff about myself that has helped me out. So there were also a lot of things that they liked about me.

So the first question you ask yourself is: What do you like about you? What is friendly about you? If they only knew the good in you, what would they find? I would sit down with a paper and pencil and write everything you like about yourself down. And then you want to say, "What do I know about myself that might be off-putting?" You do the good first. Do I act nervous when I'm in a group? Get very specific here. Do I talk too much, too little? Am I real timid? Do I stink? Do I have BO? Is it something very fixable, like that? Do I interrupt people? Do I talk about trivia and too much of it? Do I talk too much about myself? Do I give advice too readily? Do I share too much personal information too quickly? Do I dress in a slovenly manner? Am I overweight or gawky in some way that's changeable? Do I try to please others too much? So see if you can identify a couple of attributes or habits that you have that may set you up for this awkwardness, for some off-putting behavior.

Then get information from those you trust. If you have a good friend or a family member, ask them, "What do you notice about me?" Now, initially, they'll say, "Oh, nothing. You're wonderful." But say, "No, can you level with me? Is this something I do that you think might be off-putting to people?" You have to be ready to accept their feedback and thank them for it. That's what we were trained to do in that workshop. We thanked the people for giving us negative feedback, because you can't change unless you learn what you're doing wrong.

You can also give yourself the benefit of therapy. You can get some self-help. There's a book, The Loneliness Book: A Guide to Developing and Maintaining Lasting Connections, by Mary Ellen Copeland. It's a mixed book, but there's some really good stuff in that.

Now notice, with all of this, your goal is not to become a people pleaser, the life of the party, or an accepted member of your coworkers' clique. Your goal is to learn to make personal changes so that you admire yourself more, you make yourself more lovable, and you—you get the first benefit—you like yourself more. Then, when you go to reach out to people, realize it's not a group versus you. Each person is an individual in that group, so reach out to the friendliest person in that group and try to befriend them. And—or—you can even ask them for feedback. But don't come in too wimpy, because that's off-putting to people. You can level with them. Just say, "I'm puzzled. Help me understand what's going on here. Is there something behind the scenes I'm not getting?" You can ask a question like that to somebody who's more friendly. And when you notice, when you start to build a little more self-confidence, and maybe even if you don't have personal interests, to develop more of those, you'll find it easier to reach out. If you have a hobby, it's easier to reach people, and you won't fear rejection because, fundamentally, you're not rejecting yourself. You like yourself, or you love yourself.

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Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Dr. Ellen Kenner.

Here's another reason why the view that sexual pleasure is only physical, unrelated to your mind, your values, or your character is very wrong. If sex were purely physical, it wouldn't matter how you viewed yourself as a person. But to fully enjoy sex, you must feel worthy of sexual pleasure. A person who feels selfless or who feels self-contempt will not get the same pleasure from sex as one who feels worthy and has high self-esteem. A man or woman who uses sexual congress as a substitute for self-esteem soon finds that sex only hides their anxiety and self-doubt for a short time. Sex cannot fill the void caused by a lack of self-value. It can only express the self-value that you already have.

You can download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at amazon.