Overly Pedantic people (perfectionism) related to SA

So recently i've been involved in a group project for my course. the people in my group were nice to be around but i couldn't help but notice how overly pedantic they were to the finest detail. now you may be reading that thinking what am i complaining about? one thing i noticed was how rigid and unaffective their behaviour actually was. For instance we would review a report and there would be arguments over the use of words. it wasn't that the words being used weren't affective. it was more "we could use six other words that have the same meaning". This is fine because our ideas can be used if required but i just found it mostly wasted the teams time because it would cause arguments between team members and there was so much nit picking over meaningless formatting issues. I would pick out the obvious errors with documents which would be two/three lines while the other members had two or three pages of suggestions which gives you an example of how pedantic these people were. ....

Problem i found is that Pedantic individuals are condesending, somewhat overbearing, narrow minded and think THEY are the ONLY ones's who know anything and when you are in a situation like that then it becomes a constant tug of war because people have tunnel vision.

They claim to be perfectionists which in itself i find irritating. anyone who claims to be a perfectionist bothers me because someones method of reaching a result may be different to another persons. it also means to me that these people believe there is only one right way of achieving a goal. my dad is like this. he claims to be a perfectionist and that everything should be completed 100% and yet his open mindedness is non existant. He believes that failure is unacceptable. But any sientist will tell you that failure is just a result that didnt meet your expectations and thats how humans learn.

I believe this entire concept is partly why i have such low self-esteem and is what lead to social anxiety because i've been brought up by people and been around people who claim to be perfectionists and i have been taught that failure (or rather someone elses idea of failure) is a horrible thing rather then being taught that failure or rejection is actually a good positive step towards learning new experiences.

Im not sure ive explained this how i wanted to but i hope you understrand what i'm driving at here.

here is an article that sort of elaborates more what im suggesting.

Overcoming Perfectionism

This is also related to my behaviour of indecision. I seem to be very indecisive because of the fear of failure so often i dont try new skills or take as many risks as i could. same with applying for jobs or tackling homework. there seems to be the fear of failure that gets in the way of alot of things including making friends.

so really this is about the toxicity and influence these people have had on me. i'm not saying people should be sloppy and not pedantic but i'm talking about extreme, rigid, perfectionists that i find toxic to be around because they are sort of a walking contradiction. what i mean by that is they are often inflexible and non-spontaneous to ideas outside of the square and they firmly believe their way is the only way. or they read a set of rules and take it as gospel for everything.

to summarise even more i believe that my conditioning has sort of screwed me up, now i have to try and unwind what i've been taught.

You are right. Perfectionism is an input into social phobia. Perfection is impossible; a perfectionist will not try at all if he\she does not think something can be done perfectly; social phobia since the person feels invalid.

Some things e.g. medicine, the law do need to be done as perfectly as possible. Mostly good enough to reach the objective is just as good as perfection. Nothing can ever be perfectly clean, for example.

I'm surprised this thread didn't get more replies, as old as it is. Anyway, I've always wondered if there was a link. I mean, I don't call myself a perfectionist in any way, but people have more than once called me that. I once had a friend who went out of her way to gather all the information she could to show how much of a "perfectionist" I am. Why she did, I have no idea? I'll admit I did feel a little hurt afterwards though :/ I mean, yeah I usually do things slower than some people because I feel like I have to get it "just right". When writing a paper of any sort, if I scribble out more than one word, I end up rewriting the whole thing when I'm done so it "looks right". I tend to organize quite a bit, like organizing my cds from most favorite and by genre, organizing my books by largest to smallest (Unless it's a series) and by author, and the list goes on. So, maybe I am a perfectionist? I don't know. I've always denied it, but maybe what other people say is true?

I disagree about comparing perfectionism with pedantry; I'm more perfectionist than the average, but not in the pathological way that you imply. Yes, I tend to do things in the most perfect way as possible, but I do not consider myself pedant for this.

I guess many people with SA may develop some kind of perfectionism as a kind of shield or defense to try to develop an own personality isolated from the others. It's like a survival trick.

But in my opinion comparing perfectionism with pedantry is wrong in most cases; a pedant does not need to be perfectionist: it's simply someone that believes he's more *something (intelligent, strong, etc)* and shows it in a pretentious way that is very irritating for others. In that case I'd think it has a lot more to do with a low empathy (understand the environment where you are and adapt) that with perfectionism.

"You're a perfectionist ... About your appearance...about your work/art...It's a good thing because it makes you strive for excellence...it's a bad thing because you're too hard on yourself."
My friend wrote this in a letter to me awhile back when I was stressing over school. I got to the point I couldn't function and she pointed out that I need to do what wound make me happy, not to impress anyone else, but for me. Being a perfectionist is impossible thinking. It's very crippling because like Hoddeson said, the fear of failure is overwhelming. I clouds ones own thinking. When I was in that mindset, I would go to work expecting to get fired because I missed a minor detail or fail a class if I didn't get an A on a paper. It was very black and white thinking. Now I take the good with the bad and I'm a lot more flexible with things. I still do the same amount of work and I'm not being lazy but I completely changed my way of thinking when getting things done. I've found that I'm a lot more relaxed now because of it.

I think this has to do rather with narowmindedness/lack of tolerance and lack of humour. If people are too rigid in their views or too judgmental, it's difficult to get on or work with them.. Perfectionism isn't bad per se, it's good when you try to do your work on 100 percent, but at the same time not take it too seriously, if you do a mistake, it will not be the end of the world. Even more important is to be tolerant to the mistakes of others and understand that there is not only one way of doing things and that everyone is different, there is not only one thing or view suitable to everybody.

There are for example people who have fixed idea of what "good job" is, and don't understand that someone might want to do something else, even if it's not that generally highly regarded job.