Reverse Exhibitionism

Basic human needs. Food, clothing, shelter, health, sex, companionship. These are some of the most widely acknowledged. But there are a few others that are possibly, in their ways, nearly as intense as these, but that you will rarely if ever find mention of.

One of the latter category is a human need which I've noticed time and again over the years. And it is so seldom mentioned that I don't believe there exists a word in the English language that expresses it. It is this: the need to not stand out when one is in a public setting without the company of friends. In such situations, people's desire to just blend into the crowd, and not do or say anything that would attract any attention to themselves, seems to me as strong as any other human tendency I've ever come across.

To be sure, there are some words that come close, but none of them precisely captures the concept.

• Inhibition. This word too refers to a person holding back in a social setting. But when we call a person "inhibited", we are placing the source of restraint within the specific individual, whereas the phenomenon I refer to is situational, as well as universal.
• Conformity. This word captures the sense of wanting to blend in with the crowd -- but it connotes a certain positive sense of comfort derived from belonging with the group. In the trait I'm discussing, a person is not actively searching for any group identification -- in fact, they'd be just as content to be alone at home.
• Anonymity. While this word applies to a person seeking to minimize public recognition, it generally refers to a situation where one has in fact already accomplished something which warrants such recognition, which is not the case in the situation I'm describing.

If any of my dear readers can think of a word which more accurately captures the sense, or, even better, coin your own word, I'd be happy to hear from you.

At any rate, I see evidence of this human characteristic all the time. When we don't raise our hand in the classroom for fear of being wrong -- and this applies to adults no less than children. Or when we allow others to cut in line and don't say a word.

I know of a high school teacher who on one occasion deliberately spoke nonsense throughout an entire 40-minute class just to test the students' reactions. At the end of the period, he told his class: "I have just spoken utter nonsense for the past 40 minutes, and not one of you made the slightest attempt to challenge me."

But perhaps the most illustrative example I can think of is a story told to me by a friend of mine many years ago. For a period of time, every time I would see him, he would be studying to become an account. He scored so high on the qualifying examination that he stood first in the entire province of Ontario. It was only natural then that he subsequently open a school to train others for this exam. He would hold the classes in rented classrooms in colleges and so forth.

On one particular occasion, he showed up at the building where he was to give a lecture, located the classroom, and found his class waiting. So he began lecturing on some topic related to accounting. Perhaps it was tax loopholes for mid-size corporations. Or maybe it was on the implications of fiscal amortization on performance indicators.

Now if I recall correctly, he had a vague sense of discomfort in the room, but kept on lecturing. Finally, about twenty minutes into the lecture, some brave soul timidly raised his hand to ask a question.

"Yes", said my friend. "What is it?"

"Sir, is this the support group for gays seeking to renew family relationships?"

Oops.

It turned out that my friend had accidentally shown up in the wrong classroom, and had begun his accounting lecture in the classroom where the gay support group session had been scheduled. Presumably, in another classroom somewhere nearby, someone was speaking to a group of accounting students about reaching out and healing broken relationships.

As in many stories, the fascinating part of this one, of course, is trying to determine what was going on in the minds of those men who had come to get social and emotional support, and instead sat, silently and patiently, in that classroom for twenty minutes, listening to some man discuss audits, depreciation, debit and assets? Did they really think that what they were hearing was related to what they had come for, and that it was only a failure on their part to figure out the connection? Did they fear that they might embarrass the lecturer?

I claim that the answer to both questions is "nay", and that the true answer is that humans have a fierce need to not stand out in a crowd.

Call it reverse exhibitionism.