Do you find yourself saying the wrong thing at the wrong time? Are you always sweaty? Can’t eat a meal without dumping sauce on your shirt? Get stuck with no umbrella in a freak rainstorm on your way to work? Don’t know what to do with your hands … ever? Well, if so, according to a new study, chances are good you’re a millennial — ages 18 to 32.
“You are definitely the most awkward generation,” Wakefield Research partner Nathan Richter said.
Richter conducted a study on feeling comfortable, for the footwear company Crocs. He found millennials (of the 1,000 people studied) far more likely than any other age group to panic in a social situation and then either lie or blame someone else or even fake a phone call to deal with it.
“This manifests itself everywhere,” Richter said, “at home, in the workplace, in our personal relationships with family, friends and significant others.”
The millennials Fox 5 found didn’t seem terribly surprised by Richter’s findings. They listed defense mechanisms matching those from Nathan’s study (apologizing repeatedly, going silent or making jokes, to name a few) and even got uncomfortable when we asked them to recall the time they felt most uncomfortable.
But as to why they — or we — feel this way so often? Well, the study tried to answer that as well.
“[Millennials] are a little less comfortable in their skin,” Richter said. “We saw that in their personal relationships. We saw it even physically. Maybe they’ll grow out of it.”
The Greatest Generation saved the world from tyranny and then built this nation into a world power. The Baby Boomer Generation fostered culture, love and equality. But as for that Millennial Generation? Well, apparently, we’re just awkward.