Kirk Schleiffarth looked up from his book in the library to find the person across from him staring right at him. He looked back down and, a little while later, looked up again. Still staring. He was so uncomfortable, he got up and moved to another section.

"Awkward," Schleiffarth thought to himself.

Tyler Nebeker decided to tell a joke to a group of people. He got to the punch line and nobody laughed. Instead of giving up, Nebeker started stuttering as he explained the joke.

He kept trying to build on the ending, fishing for a laugh. The listeners remained stone-faced and Nebeker felt terribly awkward.

But he is not alone. There is the person who asks you personal questions when you have only just met. Your reaction makes them feel awkward. There is the person who goes all the way around the building to avoid the dilemma of whether or not to hold the door for you. They know it is an awkward move, but cannot seem to help it.

"Social awkwardness is a term that is thrown around a lot at BYU," Nebeker said.

But what does it really mean? Is social awkwardness something that everyone experiences circumstantially, or is it a problem serious enough to seek help for?

According to experts on campus, the answer is both.

"People may label you as socially awkward, but if you're not distressed about it, it doesn't matter," said Anna Packard, a psychology student in BYU's Clinical Doctoral program. "The significance of the term lies in whether or not you are distressed by it."

Packard said we learn appropriate social interactions mostly by trial and error.

"We often do or say something in a situation and look to people's reactions," Packard said. "We'll say to ourselves 'Oh that came across weird. I won't do that again.' But a lot of the time, social cues can be very ambiguous."

Packard said when you feel awkward, you experience a sense of isolation, but in reality there are a lot of people who feel the same way.

"At BYU, there is a huge emphasis on social life-FHE, dating, marriage," Packard said. "People need to know that there isn't something wrong with them if they hate going to dances."

Through BYU's Comprehensive Clinic, Packard and her co-leader Chris Chapman run a therapy group that deals with social awkwardness issues. The Interpersonal Process Group is based on the philosophy that group members can get caring feedback about their social skills from fellow participants-the kind of feedback that comes in a much harsher form in the real world.

Chapman said most often the participants' issues of awkwardness are linked to more serious problems like depression and anxiety.

"The BYU culture has a wonderful sense of purpose in its spiritual aspect," Chapman said, "but people need to know that being unhappy doesn't necessarily mean that your testimony is in jeopardy."

Chapman also said that awkwardness beatable.

"Acknowledging it, being open about it, is a kind of solution in and of itself," he said.

Dianne Nielsen, a clinical psychologist from the BYU counseling center, agrees that awkwardness can be overcome.

"Social anxiety has a really high improvement rate," Nielsen said. "It's very likely to improve with therapy."

Nielsen said that in addition to group therapy, individual counseling can be helpful. She works one-on-one with students, free of charge. The cost of counseling services is covered by tuition.

"(Social problems) really can interfere with a person's happiness," Nielsen said. "Young adulthood is a terrific time for people to work on those problems because they are just on the threshold of their marriages and their careers."

When awkwardness interferes with things you value-when you cannot conduct a good job interview, approach a professor or develop a close relationship-it is a sign that you should seek help.

"These are more than just social glitches," Nielsen said. "These are examples of people really feeling themselves stopped in important endeavors."

In her therapy sessions, Nielsen helps students work through social anxiety by first gauging what makes their feelings of awkwardness worse and what makes them better.

"For many people, structured social situations are easier to deal with than unstructured situations," Nielsen said. "For example, someone might determine that they are more uncomfortable hanging out after ward prayer than they are going to sacrament meeting."

When individuals have analyzed their problems, they can work through them by gradually exposing themselves to situations that challenge them.

"If someone hates big crowds, they can start by exposing (themselves) to smaller crowds or taking a friend with them," Nielsen said. "It's just like lifting weights at the gym. It's got to be difficult but not overwhelming. Practice and practice often."

Although Nielsen said she doesn't have first-hand experience in BYU social settings, from students that she knows well she has determined that at BYU, with its unique dating and relationship traditions, people seem to feel judged frequently.

In Nielson's view, "judgment often makes things worse."