Because of her “no fear” lifestyle some of Ava’s friends don’t
exactly respond positively to some of her choices of activities.
“Oh here goes Ava doing her wild stuff again,” she explains.
“At this point it’s almost like I don’t care how they feel anymore.
Sometimes I’ll invite people. But sometimes I won’t, because it’s
almost not even worth it anymore. And sometimes I’ll just tell them
once I’m back,” she said in an exasperated tone. “In October, I went
to Egypt and Dubai for 17 days, and I didn’t tell a lot of people just
because I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear why
I shouldn’t go or why it’s dangerous, or how I should be safe, or
whatever tips they think they are going to try to give me.”
A lot of sensation-seekers feel misunderstood as being
“crazy” or “wild.” People wonder what’s wrong with them because
of their sensation-seeking activities. Having friends who under-
stand and support their unique experience of the world can be an
important aspect to their friendships and give them a sense of
belonging (the “Understanding” and “Belonging” in the Bucket
Theory). People who affirm this social identity are more likely to
share the intimate parts of their personality. It doesn’t have to be
other high sensation-seekers, just another person who supports the
things they do.
A high sensation-seeker’s ability to tolerate intense experi-
ences goes beyond vertical spelunking. It goes into interpersonal
interactions. There are some social interactions that can be intense.
Some average and low sensation-seekers will just avoid those situa-
tions altogether, just to make the interaction smoother.
Let’s say that you don’t seem to react to those potentially
stressful situations in a typically stressful way, and let’s say that you
tend to be less inhibited. That could be a recipe for a “say whatever
you want” type of attitude. Ava says she gets described as “intense”
and it runs in the family.
“My sister and I are both pretty intense, I think we are pretty
realas far as the conversations we like to have and what we might
say to someone who’s our friend. We’re not going to sugarcoat it
that much.” She continued, “I went to my friend’s wedding in North
Carolina and it’s all these girls telling the bride that her hair looks
great. The lady had put this giant flower in it and it looked awful.
I told her, ‘You know what? That flower is not working,’ and she was
like, ‘Oh thank you. I didn’t like it but I didn’t know what to do.’”
As previously mentioned, research suggests that thrill-
seekers can process intense emotional experiences in a different99 / The Relationships of High Sensation-SeekersDownloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Access paid by the UCSF Library, on 11 Nov 2019 at 14:21:35, subject to the Cambridge