I suppose I need to make a concession: I'm not as shy as I think or make myself out to be.
Except that's not true.
What I am, I guess, is circumstantially shy. Does that make sense?
Except that's not true.
What I am, I guess, is circumstantially shy. Does that make sense?
I told you how I'm at this AP thing and the thought of mixing and mingling and talking to people makes me sick. That wasn't a lie. Like, I feel seriously anxious just thinking about socializing with just about anybody but my roommate and her sixty-something year old friends who I'll be eating out with tomorrow night, and even they make me uneasy to be honest. Tonight, however, I walked to a coffeehouse by myself (that's not the not shy part. I go places alone all the time), wandering unknowingly into the middle of an open mic. After the guy who was on when I came in finished, a comedian came on, a comedian who, in the middle of his thing--I mean, I guess it was his thing--looked at me and said something like, You! You look like you have that sexy pansexual vibe.
Now, if that happened to me in a roomful of AP people, I'd get jittery and red and want to cry. At the coffeehouse, though, what I did instead was respond. You mean I look like I want to have sex with everyone in this room? I asked, and I felt totally fine. When the comedian finished and sat down next to me and started a conversation? Again, fine. When the singer of the band that went on after him finished and came over to us? Still fine, so fine in fact that I started talking to him about The Front Bottoms and didn't feel sick at all. When the girl behind the counter started talking about how creepy and weird Catholicism is? So fucking fine I chimed in all on my own.
Confession time: I do stuff like this all the time. I go places and have absolutely no problem at all being the center of attention or talking to people I don't know. Sometimes I even start the conversations myself. Sometimes (gasp!) even with a cute boy.
So, like, what's the what? How come I feel totally comfortable in a coffeehouse or restaurant with one hundred percent strangers but at a work function with people I kinda sorta know--colleagues, I guess they might be called--I feel like I have a phobia of being alive? Why do I look at meet ups and writer's groups longingly online but could never ever bring myself to go? Why--
wait. I'm grasping something. A thread. A light is turning on.
These events, the ones that strike fear in my heart, are organized. That's it. That's the thread. The things I'm afraid of, the places where I can't even comfortably think about being, are somehow, in some way, organized. I mean, it makes sense. My table leader was two people ahead of me in line at Publix tonight, and to be completely honest, I have an itty bitty crush on her, but I called her name nevertheless and felt more than less fine walking back to the hotel with her one on one. If I was at one of the organized College Board events, though, I don't think I'd have been able to say a word. I think...I think what it is, is...expectation.
I think that when I'm at one of these things (well, not when--if--because I almost never go) I feel like I have to play some sort of role. Scratch that. I don't feel like I have to play a role, I do. We all do. We all have different personas for the different areas of our lives, and my fulfill-an-expectation-of-anything-orchestrated-in-any-way persona seems to not work, which I guess when I think about it isn't that bad because while I might not comfortable playing pretend at least I'm comfortable playing myself.
Now, if that happened to me in a roomful of AP people, I'd get jittery and red and want to cry. At the coffeehouse, though, what I did instead was respond. You mean I look like I want to have sex with everyone in this room? I asked, and I felt totally fine. When the comedian finished and sat down next to me and started a conversation? Again, fine. When the singer of the band that went on after him finished and came over to us? Still fine, so fine in fact that I started talking to him about The Front Bottoms and didn't feel sick at all. When the girl behind the counter started talking about how creepy and weird Catholicism is? So fucking fine I chimed in all on my own.
Confession time: I do stuff like this all the time. I go places and have absolutely no problem at all being the center of attention or talking to people I don't know. Sometimes I even start the conversations myself. Sometimes (gasp!) even with a cute boy.
So, like, what's the what? How come I feel totally comfortable in a coffeehouse or restaurant with one hundred percent strangers but at a work function with people I kinda sorta know--colleagues, I guess they might be called--I feel like I have a phobia of being alive? Why do I look at meet ups and writer's groups longingly online but could never ever bring myself to go? Why--
wait. I'm grasping something. A thread. A light is turning on.
These events, the ones that strike fear in my heart, are organized. That's it. That's the thread. The things I'm afraid of, the places where I can't even comfortably think about being, are somehow, in some way, organized. I mean, it makes sense. My table leader was two people ahead of me in line at Publix tonight, and to be completely honest, I have an itty bitty crush on her, but I called her name nevertheless and felt more than less fine walking back to the hotel with her one on one. If I was at one of the organized College Board events, though, I don't think I'd have been able to say a word. I think...I think what it is, is...expectation.
I think that when I'm at one of these things (well, not when--if--because I almost never go) I feel like I have to play some sort of role. Scratch that. I don't feel like I have to play a role, I do. We all do. We all have different personas for the different areas of our lives, and my fulfill-an-expectation-of-anything-orchestrated-in-any-way persona seems to not work, which I guess when I think about it isn't that bad because while I might not comfortable playing pretend at least I'm comfortable playing myself.
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