Why Groups Feel Hard (Even When You Like the People)
Group dynamics are much harder to navigate than one-on-one interactions.
Back in the 90s, when working for the local government in Bendigo, the CEO had us all take a Myers-Briggs test. Mine came in as ENTP:
E (Extrovert): Extroverts draw energy from being around other people rather than from time alone.
N (Intuitive): Intuitive types focus on patterns and possibilities rather than concrete facts and details.
T (Thinking): Thinking types make decisions based on logic and objective analysis rather than feelings or personal values.
P (Perception): Perceiving types prefer to stay open and flexible rather than making firm plans and sticking to them.
My E and P were borderline (the opposites are Introvert and Judgement).
Those who know me will often have seen me in group settings, both personal and professional, as pretty social, interested in talking to people, and happy to march up to someone I don’t know and introduce myself. What people don’t see is the drive home and my need to decompress. It’s not because there was any conflict or concern, but because my battery ran out and I need some quiet time to recharge. There’s my introvert kicking in. If I need to be ‘on’ for a few days in a row, for example, working a tradeshow and interacting with many people, it takes a couple of days to recoup my energy. It’s not that I feel there is something wrong, rather a kind of unexplained sense that I’m struggling.
Writing as a guest on Dr Marisa G. Franco’s Substack, clinical psychologist Ellen Hendriksen, author of How to Be Yourself, offers a useful comparison: a meeting with one colleague versus the Monday team meeting goes “from playing catch to nine innings of baseball.” In a group, you are simultaneously tracking multiple voices, reading emotional undercurrents, monitoring who is being left out, and negotiating conversational turns. Hendriksen says:
“In groups, we have to follow and respond to multiple people’s words, emotions, and interpersonal dynamics, not to mention interruptions and side convos. There’s a greater load on our cognitive capacity, social battery, and emotional bandwidth.”
Group dynamics are much harder to navigate than one-on-one interactions. It’s not that you don’t have the tools or that you’re awkward; groups are just awkward. It’s not you; it’s the nature of how much work you’ve done.
There is an extra layer of complexity when the gathering involves people who know you well. You are not simply navigating a room of strangers. You are trying to show up consistently across several overlapping versions of yourself: the funny one, the capable one, the one who more or less has things together (the latter is an impression I’m very good at projecting whilst it is not necessarily true).
As I explored in The Quiet Exhaustion of Keeping Parts of Yourself Hidden, the exhaustion doesn’t come from hiding the flawed pieces; it comes from the ongoing vigilance required to decide, moment by moment, what stays visible.
“All of us hide something of ourselves. It’s why we very rarely (I’d hope) tell people to fuck off when we don’t agree with them in work meetings. The most exhausting thing is not hiding who you are, but carrying the constant awareness that you are doing it.”
It’s even harder when different circles of friends are in the same room, some knowing something about you that others don’t. The burden increases because you are straddling two pathways simultaneously.
Hendriksen draws a distinction between social performance and social connection. Social performance focuses on external actions: saying the right things, avoiding mistakes, meeting whatever unspoken standard you imagine is operating. Social connection focuses on the relationships themselves,
“knowing, trusting, accepting, and supporting each other through experiences shared both directly and verbally.”
The two can look the same from the outside, but they feel completely different from the inside. I’ve written before about performative socialising and how you might be liked without feeling seen - this is that dynamic, operating at the level of a single evening.
Her practical advice follows the same logic. When someone asks what’s going on with you, you don’t have to file a tidy report on work, family, and other. You can tell a story. You can ask for advice on something you’ve been chewing over. You can riff on what someone else just said. The goal, as she puts it, is simple:
“Talk about what you’re jazzed to share.”
And when all eyes in the room turn toward you at once, the job isn’t to perform adequately. It’s just to show up as you actually are, which is enough even when it doesn’t feel like it.