Awkward Social Interactions

I'm shy. I've always been shy. I always will be shy. No one believes me. It's true though. I am never quite comfortable socializing with people. I always wonder if what I am saying is stupid or weird or awkward. I wonder if I said too much, or not enough. I like talking to people, and I especially appreciate those that I consider easy to talk to. Usually that means they talk a lot and I can just sit and listen. That makes things really easy on me. Occasionally, I am that person, but it makes me feel weird to be the person who does the talking while the other person listen. Even when it's my husband who is doing the listening, and he says it's relaxing, yeah, relaxing, I feel kinda awkward.

And so it takes a lot of courage for me to say hello to someone when I see them outside of the normal arena of our social interactions. For example, my mom and I went to Wal-Mart today in my home town to look for purple and gold Christmas decorations for their LSU themed Christmas tree (my idea thank you very much) and some extra items for the birth I am attending tonight. While searching for cute cellophane bags, I saw someone I used to know who I only saw at church crouching down in the craft section. I went through the crazy, "Should I say hello? Or should I pretend I don't see her?" debate in my head before blurting out like word vomit, "Now, that looks like Fanny Fannerson*!" She looks up at me and says, "Actually, it's Suzy*. Hey Kristi." Oh man. So the very awkward situation that I was trying to avoid happens anyway. You see, Fanny and Suzy are twins. Yup. Twins. And I can't tell them apart unless they have their kids with them or are standing right next to each other. Sometimes Fanny has the longer hair, and sometimes Suzy has the longer hair. And I suppose I would be able to tell them apart better if I spent more than ten minutes a year with either one of them.

So I furiously apoligized for my error and tried in vain to save my face, but yeah, I did the same thing to her that all those other twin mistakers do that she probably gets really sick of. Of course I spent the rest of our trip thinking, "I should have thought about this or that before blurting out her name!!! Argh!!!"

And I must include this information because I know this story has been so interesting to you. I am scared of the phone. Yup. I have to really pump myself up to make a phone call. I have to set an appointment to do it and force myself to do it. I will use any excuse in my head to justify not talking on the phone. It's awkward. And I'm talking about those just-calling-to-talk-for-fun phone conversations. I just don't do well at that. I suppose once I get over the initial anxiety of dialing the number and finally am on the phone with the person, then it usually goes well. Unless we get to one of those awkward pauses. You know the ones. The ones where you're just listening to each other breathe and you're both trying frantically to think of something to say until one of you says, "Oh, my kid just climbed out the window and is now on the roof and thinks she is superman and can fly. I think I need to go now. Bye!"

So, yeah, home a grand total of about 15 hours and encountered my first social weirdness. Grrrr.....

*names have been changed to protect the innocent