We should take awkwardness less personally, and more seriously | Aeon Essays

Awkwardness is a property that characterizes social situations or interactions when one or more participant(s) finds themselves lacking the guidance of a script and feels awkward as a result.

Scripts are tools for social coordination: they function only if they’re shared and accepted by sufficiently many members of the relevant group.

It doesn’t help that Jim feels unable to talk to anyone about the state of his and Daisy’s sex life. Dinners with friends give him no opportunity to bring up a topic at once so serious and so inconsequential.