11 Tiny Gestures That Speak Loudly When Someone Is Very Intimidated By You
Is there a secretly envious or intimidated person in your life?
The Attico Studio | Shutterstock.com Many of the people who are easily intimidated by others are fueled by their own insecurities, constantly comparing themselves to people they envy and seeking external validation and attention in ways that sabotage their feelings of self-worth, like psychologist Jane Bolton suggests. While a great deal of the emotional turmoil that sparks their envy of others is internal, there are certain tiny gestures that speak loudly when someone is very intimidated by you that can help to contextualize their offhand comments and general demeanor.
While it's possible to cultivate a relationship with someone who's intimidated by you, ensuring it's healthy for everyone involved starts with setting the right boundaries. By acknowledging these tiny gestures, protecting your own peace, and uplifting and empowering others in healthy ways, nobody's self-confidence is being sabotaged for the sake of misguided comfort or envy.
Here are 11 tiny gestures that speak loudly when someone is very intimidated by you
1. They avoid direct eye contact
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A study published by Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin argues that people who consistently avoid direct eye contact often appear to be less competent and confident than those who do, contributing to an unbalanced conversation where one person is always conveyed a greater sense of superiority.
While avoiding eye contact intentionally is often a reflection of someone's insecurity in social situations, it can also be a way for an intimidated person to avoid their feelings of inferiority — often self-inflicted feelings — when conversing with others.
2. They fidget excessively
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Rather than adopting a sense of false confidence or exaggerating their accomplishments in conversations, some intimidated people take on a more nervous demeanor — fidgeting excessively, closing off their body language, or rambling about a certain subject.
While a confident person may adopt simple "power poses" in conversation that can help them to feel more empowered and comfortable in conversation, these behaviors also tend to shine a light on the insecurities of a person they're communicating with.
If your confidence — like open body language or eye contact — seems to directly offend another person, it's generally a sign of their own feelings of insecurity, rather than your social nature.
3. They over-agree with your opinions
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According to psychologist David Susman, PhD, people who are overly agreeable in conversations tend to fear confrontation and conflict, avoiding social situations that fuel their own emotional discomfort.
While an insecure person may completely avoid a person they're intimidated by, they also might people-please or be overly agreeable in conversations to keep the peace and actively avoid confrontation that could potentially lead to feelings of embarrassment or rejection.
Especially if you're self-aware and socially aware of other people's behaviors, this kind of people-pleasing can feel uncomfortable for a confident person, despite being reassuring to an insecure partner.
While they seek external validation and constant reassurance, prioritizing it to an unhealthy extent with others only continues to cultivate an unbalanced relationship where they feel consistently misunderstood.
4. They exaggerate their own accomplishments in conversation
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Clinical social worker Terry Gaspard argues that people who people-please and exaggerate their accomplishments in conversations are often seeking approval from others, unable to reassure themselves of their own success.
By leaning into conversations with someone they view as superior to them, trying to sound more successful or important, they not only sabotage true feelings of connection and understanding, they seem less competent and confident — the opposite of what they're trying to convey.
While it might be uncomfortable for someone with a strong inner critic, committing to convey your most authentic self in conversation helps everyone in the long run. It's not just to cultivate healthier connections, but to support a balanced and healthy emotional state as well.
5. They name-drop to sound important
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Name-dropping is one of the tiny gestures that speak loudly when someone is very intimidated by you, as it's often a behavior that an insecure person uses to level the playing field with someone they perceive to be more influential or superior.
Despite coming across as inauthentic or inappropriate, especially to a socially aware and confident person, someone that's intimidated will often name-drop and exaggerate their accomplishments without even realizing it, sabotaging true feelings of connection and a chance to learn from the person they envy.
6. They have stiff and closed-off body language
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Similar to how a person is perceived as more intimidating depending on how their head tilts in conversation, according to a study from the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, an envious or intimidated person's insecurity is often reflected in their body language in a conversation with someone they view as superior to them.
Whether it's crossing their arms, turning away from a person they find intimidating, or maintaining a stiff posture, many people experiencing emotional discomfort allow it to manifest in their physical appearance.
While a person who's being perceived as intimidating may not realize they're contributing to a feeling of status or superiority with another, like psychiatrist Grant Hilary Brenner suggests, they may be more prone to noticing these subtle body language behaviors in others that influence their conversations and interactions.
7. Their tone of voice is higher than normal
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According to a PLOS One study on intimidation, many people adjust their tone of voice depending on who they're speaking to, specifically in response to perceptions of status or superiority.
When we're speaking to someone we're intimidated by or view in a higher status than us, we tend to heighten our tone of voice, in ways that can be perceived as nervous or less intelligent.
While an intimidated person may be entirely unaware of this conversational behavior, it's often noticeable to a self-aware person who's confident and secure enough to acknowledge another person's shifts in behavior amid a stressful or emotional conversation.
8. They avoid asking you for help
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Despite research, like a study from Management Science, that suggests people who ask for help and advice from others are perceived to be more intelligent than those who don't, an intimidated person often hyper-focuses on independently completing tasks to seem more competent.
Viewing help and collaboration as a weakness in a competitive environment, an insecure person often prioritizes seeking the validation and praise of others without additional help — sabotaging their ability to grow bonds, connect, and learn from other people, whether it's in a relationship at home or a professional environment like the workplace.
As one of the tiny gestures that speak loudly when someone is very intimidated by you, a person's inability to ask for or receive help not only sabotages a team's productivity, but isolates an insecure person from navigating the discomfort of their social interactions.
9. They over-explain their decisions and choices
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Many insecure individuals come across as confrontational in conversations with people they're intimidated by, feeling an innate need to over-explain themselves and rationalize their decisions.
Constantly seeking external validation and reassurance from others, without the internal stability and clarity needed to make decisions alone, intimidated people often force conversations to feel more competitive by revealing their feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.
Even if there's no confrontation or conflict present, many of the tiny gestures that speak loudly when someone is intimidated by you is their defensiveness. They're always trying to prove themselves as "right," even at the expense of a healthy and productive conversation.
10. They try to convey false confidence
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From suppressing their innately bold emotions to conveying a false image of themselves they believe to be more palatable, one of the tiny gestures that speak loudly when someone is very intimidated by you is their false confidence.
This misguided confidence, often built by an exaggerated sense of a person's skills and abilities, can sabotage opportunities for a person to learn from and grow a bond with a confident person.
Not only are they putting forth an inauthentic version of themselves — setting themselves up for constant misunderstandings and disillusionment in conversations where they want to feel heard — they're forcing themselves to grow resentment for someone, fueled by their suppressed discomfort, that will demand to be felt and addressed later on.
11. They don't seek out conversations with you
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Many insecure and intimidated people self-isolate themselves without realizing it by avoiding social interactions with people they deem superior to them.
Afraid of the negative emotional repercussions of experiencing rejection, like shame, guilt, or embarrassment, many insecure people would prefer to isolate themselves than accept the challenge of engaging in social interaction with the potential to get hurt.
While it's often uncomfortable and scary, getting out of your comfort zone with new social interactions and conversations can be incredibly important for building self-esteem.
What an insecure person often fails to recognize is that the situations they fear — meeting new people or being in a room with people more successful than them — are the environments where the people they're intimidated by have grown within.
So, the next time you feel like someone is avoiding you or isolating themselves from social interactions that you're in, remember that it says a lot more about their confidence and security than yours.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor's degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.