These sort of things really bother me, because they cause me a lot of trouble.
I am really uncomfortable in front of people, and no matter how honest I am, I am show my discomfort in interacting with people quite a lot. I look around the room while talking to people, I shuffle around, sometimes I sweat just talking about the weather... I have social anxiety obviously, but it's awkward to start a conversation with anyone by saying, "Oh hey, this interaction is going to be really awkward because I have social anxiety." I tried it for a while and most people seemed to just blow it off.
It's caused me quite a few issues with friends who frequently think I'm lying when asked 'truth-seeking questions. More importantly authority figures tend to misinterpret this as me being deceptive or uncooperative.
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The most recent example was a police officer that came to my house to see if I had seen my neighbor's car recently. The car had been stolen and they were trying to determine the last known time it was present. As usual, during the rather normal questions I was rocking back and forth, chewing on my nails and shuffling my feet. I'm painfully aware of these things and consciously try to stop each little tick, one by one.
It didn't take long for the officer to ask why I was so nervous, and the he promptly switched the subject and asked if I had any hobbies. I'm fairly obsessive about my hobbies, and I pretty much immediately started rambling about what I was doing. I suspect I stopped most of my 'nervous ticks', because he interrupted my ramble to ask why I was lying about not having seen the car lately.
It was extremely offputting, since I wasn't lying. I got really nervous again, and started thinking about how I 'screwed up' the interaction. Instead of responding to his question I simply told him that I had really bad social anxiety and this questioning was really difficult for me. That didn't help at all.
I ended up with another officer at my door, with more questions that I had no answers to, and I became more and more nervous. Needless to say this went on for ~30 minutes just standing at my front door until I suppose they realized that I was either telling the truth, or was a completely unreliable witness (I was!).
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Things like that aren't rare for me. It sucks, and early in my life it caused me to simply lie a lot. People almost always thought I was 'up to something' or 'not telling the true', so I would just go with it. I eventually learned the value of consistent honesty, but I am treated the same regardless.
It goes without saying that this being in my head during every single personal encounter causes me even more anxiety and unsuredness about my responses to someone.
edit: I noticed I actually started rocking back and forth and itching my head randomly while writing this post... bleh.
Yeah, I used to struggle with social anxiety a fair bit, so this is familiar to me. It's true that many liars are anxious, because they're afraid of getting caught. But I became afraid of getting falsely accused, which tended to make me anxious at exactly the same times liars would be. Which in turn would trigger a wave of anxiety about the pattern, making me excruciatingly aware of the whole mess, making me yet more awkward.
I'm sorry to hear how much trouble it causes you. It's a miserable experience.
Yeah, I have this feedback loop as well. When put in a position of thinking that someone is evaluating whether I'm telling the truth or not, I become fearful that they will falsely think I'm lying... then the loop begins.
I think that the irony is that if I wanted to lie, I could probably get away with it since I give off such mixed signals when saying _anything_. True or false, I just fall apart.
I have similar issues and had that anxiety feedback loop once when questioned by an airline security officer, "How long have you been in Europe?" on a backpacking trip. I was wondering if they meant EU or the continent and whether only since last exit or since I left home (since they were holding my non-European passport), and no exact correct answers were coming to mind for any of the possibilities, I was tired, wondering why didn't they just read the stamps in the passport if they cared so much, I wasn't prepared to get a grilling just to check in for my flight, and OH NO I'M HESITATING I LOOK LIKE SUSPICIOUS WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN?!? Well, I muddled through with vague hesitant answers that may have even been contradictory because of my uncertainty. Anyway, despite a really cringey performance from me, I guess they were satisfied that I wasn't knowingly or unknowingly carrying drugs/bombs (seemed to be the main concerns), because they gave me my ticket and I went through the real security and passport control which IIRC was nowhere near as invasive.
I guess they can tell the difference between a socially-anxious perfectionist stressing about giving correct answers and a liar stressing about giving false answers... or the airline is wasting their money by giving this "interview" but ignoring really sketchy answers. Or maybe I did not appear as suspicious as I thought.
Another time I casually broke eye contact with a bus security officer while he was rattling off prohibited items and searching my bag. I've noticed sometimes I subconsciously prefer to focus by looking down and maybe turning an ear toward someone talking about something detailed like this, but this guy seemed to interpret it as a sign that he'd just said something that was in my bag and shouldn't be. He repeated the question once and maybe twice, so this time I stared straight into his eyes as I answered. Maybe it looked like a liar over-compensating, but whatever, he was tossing my bag anyway.
I am really uncomfortable in front of people, and no matter how honest I am, I am show my discomfort in interacting with people quite a lot. I look around the room while talking to people, I shuffle around, sometimes I sweat just talking about the weather... I have social anxiety obviously, but it's awkward to start a conversation with anyone by saying, "Oh hey, this interaction is going to be really awkward because I have social anxiety." I tried it for a while and most people seemed to just blow it off.
It's caused me quite a few issues with friends who frequently think I'm lying when asked 'truth-seeking questions. More importantly authority figures tend to misinterpret this as me being deceptive or uncooperative.
---
The most recent example was a police officer that came to my house to see if I had seen my neighbor's car recently. The car had been stolen and they were trying to determine the last known time it was present. As usual, during the rather normal questions I was rocking back and forth, chewing on my nails and shuffling my feet. I'm painfully aware of these things and consciously try to stop each little tick, one by one.
It didn't take long for the officer to ask why I was so nervous, and the he promptly switched the subject and asked if I had any hobbies. I'm fairly obsessive about my hobbies, and I pretty much immediately started rambling about what I was doing. I suspect I stopped most of my 'nervous ticks', because he interrupted my ramble to ask why I was lying about not having seen the car lately.
It was extremely offputting, since I wasn't lying. I got really nervous again, and started thinking about how I 'screwed up' the interaction. Instead of responding to his question I simply told him that I had really bad social anxiety and this questioning was really difficult for me. That didn't help at all.
I ended up with another officer at my door, with more questions that I had no answers to, and I became more and more nervous. Needless to say this went on for ~30 minutes just standing at my front door until I suppose they realized that I was either telling the truth, or was a completely unreliable witness (I was!).
---
Things like that aren't rare for me. It sucks, and early in my life it caused me to simply lie a lot. People almost always thought I was 'up to something' or 'not telling the true', so I would just go with it. I eventually learned the value of consistent honesty, but I am treated the same regardless.
It goes without saying that this being in my head during every single personal encounter causes me even more anxiety and unsuredness about my responses to someone.
edit: I noticed I actually started rocking back and forth and itching my head randomly while writing this post... bleh.