Thoughts on cringe

I’m outgrowing my embarrassment.

A couple of months ago, a colleague was leaving my team so naturally added us all on LinkedIn and social media to keep in contact. One thing about my social media is that very sneakily in the bios or descriptions, there’s always a link to this blog, just in case it tempts a passerby or friend into reading my posts. The colleague noticed this and asked me about my blog. Instantly, I felt myself folding inwards and crumpling into the smallest human being I could be – “It’s just random thoughts and stuff I sometimes post.” Quite rightly, their response was to tell me I shouldn’t be embarrassed. Although, at that point, they clearly hadn’t read my post on how much I like concrete. 

More recently I was listening to a podcast episode, called ‘Date the Person Who Makes You Cringe’. In this, the podcast hosts explored, alongside other things, why sometimes we need to lean into the things that make us cringe a little bit. It also highlighted to me that a lot of the things I cringe about are the things that the cool teenagers at school would think are lame. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with cringy things beyond that. So, with that in mind, why am I letting a bunch of teenagers from the past dictate what I feel confident doing and what characteristics I admire?

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Some of the things I find most cringey about myself are essentially all my hobbies and interests, anything I feel remotely passionate about, and dressing in an overly exaggerated, albeit fun, way. When asked recently what my hobbies are, the cringe came in so hard and fast that the only hobby I could seemingly share was watching Taskmaster. Not that I’ve seen any season of it previous to the latest one. Nonetheless, that was somehow the best answer I could give. Immediately, I realised watching one TV show as your only hobby was far more lame, particularly as later I came up with a list of my various hobbies that made me sound way more like a fun and varied person. Perhaps it was the lesson I needed to admit some of my hobbies more. Yet somewhere in the back of my head is still that one person from GCSE English saying “You like to dance? I bet you’re the one they put in the class to make everyone else look better.” (Yes that really was said to me, yes it really has stuck). 

I think at its core, cringe is just shame, and shame is not a logical or reasonable feeling. Brene Brown has researched a lot into shame and most of her motivational speeches seem to boil down to say that shame only robs joy. It doesn’t particularly help us, or anyone else. It makes us into smaller versions of ourselves, quick to doubt and fear, cautious to take only the smallest space possible. But in a world where everyone’s doing that, is anyone really enjoying themselves? No. And it doesn’t save us from bad things happening in the future – it just extends the bad feelings beyond where needed. 

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Having come to this conclusion, it’s about time that I uninvited cringe from the party. It’s not welcome here anymore. I’d like to be unapologetically myself, not hiding my interests or minimising them to fit what a teenager in 2013 would think is cool. Let’s be clear – in 2013, Tumblr, being emo, and fandoms weren’t cool even if we look back on them now with fondness. Shorts with leggings underneath, Justin Bieber’s swoopy hair, and pretending to like alcohol were thought of as cool. Ironically, as we look back, it is the groups that fully invested in their passions and interests that get celebrated as iconic for the time. If they were bogged down in the cringe, we wouldn’t have indie aesthetics to try to recreate or hilarious fashion trends to make popular again.

Learning not to cringe at yourself or others is a challenge – we’ve been socialised for so long to do it, whoever may be defining cringe for you. But taking the step to be a bit more confident in yourself, celebrate the things you want to celebrate and learn to take up space is well worth the effort. Who knows, you might even find that other people actually think it’s pretty interesting.

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With that, I’d like to say that I do have a blog. I write about anything and everything I want to. Some are more serious than others, but I enjoy writing and secretly like it when people tell me they’ve enjoyed reading it. I think I’m an alright writer. I think I’m getting better. I also have lots of hobbies – I enjoy crafty things like painting, knitting and sewing, but also reading books of all kinds, listening to my favourite bands and artists, and pretending to understand art. I like yoga and dancing and moving my body, although at the moment that’s more of a dancing in the kitchen rather than any sort of class. Oh, and I really enjoyed the last season of Taskmaster. I might watch another season of it at some point.

If you liked this post you may also be interested in my thoughts on women or my sense of calling.