Spotlight Effect

Hello! Today I wanted to write about the spotlight effect because it has been on my mind here and there throughout this past April.

For those that aren't familiar with the spotlight effect, it's the cognitive bias where we overestimate the degree to which we are being noticed by others and the degree that others will care about the things that they notice about us. For example, pretend you're in a zoom work meeting with your colleagues. You are extra conscious of your own behaviour and worry about what your colleagues will think about you. But in reality, your colleagues don't even notice those things about you since they're highly likely conscious of their own behaviour instead.

It's something I tend to deal with during work. I used to be super conscious of how much I move when I'm sitting in a work meeting, how I look, etc. My manager is pretty knowledgeable when it comes to psychology and she often reassures me that most people don't care, and it's something that she learned as she got older. She's at the part of her life now where she doesn't really care about what she does, and I can't wait to reach that part of my life!!

I've been in the workforce officially for 2 years at this point and it's so funny how all it takes is one event in my personal life to help me get over this spotlight effect.

About a month ago, I went to a highschool friend's birthday dinner. We were in a restaurant at this time with 2 other friends of hers, so it was a group of 4, including me. For context, our friendship dynamic (outside of our 1:1s) involves her doing most of the talking while I listen. The topics were usually about her work probably because we don't have much common interests in general. I don't share much since my work is in HR and most things are confidential.

But anyways, at the birthday dinner table, I was listening to her talk and we landed on a topic relating to costumes. She shared about an orchestra event that we went to together about 6 months ago during Halloween times and how kids were all dressed up that day. But the problem was, she forgot who she went with - she told her friend that she went with another friend of hers: my ex-friend.

I didn't speak up at that time to correct her for several reasons as I was assessing the situation, while also trying to process my own feelings:

1. It's literally her birthday

2. I didn't want to cause any awkwardness since one of the party members at this birthday dinner is friends with my ex-friend, who was also present when my friendship with the ex-friend went down the drain

3. I felt it wasn't the right place and time to correct her

But it did sting because she confused me with my ex-friend.

At that point, I remember wanting to immediately leave the table and cry, being super hurt that I was forgotten by my friend. We literally went to this event half a year ago. I remember feeling so sad. When I finally went home, I immediately called my boyfriend, told him everything, and just sat there on the ground because I was too sad to do anything else (normally, I would shower asap after coming home from the outside world). Talking to my boyfriend always helps me because he put things into perspective and lets me see things in ways that I would have never seen. I was so focused on feeling hurt that I was easily forgotten, and how my ex-friend was clearly more memorable than I was. But my boyfriend was like, if my friend misremembered me and confused me for my ex-friend, then it also means my ex-friend wasn't that memorable either.

That perspective helped me become less sad. I was starting to question my self and put myself down in a negative way. However, this event did hammer down the idea of the spotlight effect. After processing that sadness, now I refuse to make memories with someone that will forget that I was there with them. I also stopped being as conscious of myself in my work meetings than in the past. I am less conscious of worrying what other people think of me in most situations. It also started to kill my fear of being forgotten. I noticed this about myself in the last 30 days.

So in general, that one mistake on my friend's part helped me personally in some ways.

I never brought it up to her because it has been a month since. It's highly likely not a big deal for her either. I am also giving her the benefit of the doubt because she does interact with lots of people on a day-to-day basis, and I'm not exactly a memorable person to be with. It makes sense for her to confuse me with my ex-friend since the orchestra we watched was a movie that my ex-friend LOVED and was super vocal about in the past. We're also older now so I don't expect our memories to be that great anymore.

You know, the typical adult experience.

If you reached the end of this post, thank you for taking the time to read this! If you are experiencing the spotlight effect as well, it's completely normal and you'll eventually reach that point of your life where it won't bother you anymore.