Social awkwardness

So, socially I’m pretty awkward. On the whole I’m happy with my introverted lifestyle, with spontaneous bursts of extraversion, followed by guilt and more introversion. I occasionally enjoy a splash of omniversion.

Om nom nomniversion.

I think I’m what they call an ambivert.

Eeenyway. I have a few people I’m comfortable talking to, and then there’s the rest of the world. The other night one of the rest of the world was my 11 year old cousin. She’s from Scotland and my dad’s over there and I was talking to him on the phone and he’s like, “here talk to your cousin!” and I was all, “oh no no no!” and then she was on the phone.

Our conversation went something like this:

Sam: Hi, how are you?
Cousin: Hi, I’m fine thanks.
Sam: I like your accent
Cousin: Thanks, I like your accent too
Sam: Cool… Thanks
…
Sam: How crazy is the time?
Cousin: Yeah, what’s the time there?
Sam: ummmmm… like 6pm.
…
Sam: Well, I have to go and things. Have a good day!
*hang up*

And then I went and hid in my room.

This isn’t isolated. I’ve run off from shopping centres because kids talk to me.

5 year old boy: I like this bracelet. Purple is my favourite colour. I don’t think there should be boys’ and girls’ colours because you should like whatever colour you want.
Sam: Yeah, you’re an inspiration :).

And then I nodded and kept nodding and walked off while nodding and got to my car and drove home and hid in my room.

I did truly think that child was an inspiration. You challenge that hegemony, kid!

My awkwardness extends to the Internet. I like asynchronous communication, I can think about the implications of my words before they’re blurted out. But sometimes I take too long to think, and then it’s been a couple of days without replying to an email, and then I feel awkward and don’t want to send an email and remind the person they sent me an email which I hadn’t replied to yet, so I stop checking my email altogether.

And it’s similar with facebook messages I haven’t replied to. I won’t update my status or comment on things so people think, “maybe she just hasn’t been online for a while?” But I have, I’m just lurking and being creepy until I think they’ve forgotten they sent me a message. *sigh*.

Anyway. I don’t know how I got to be so socially uncomfortable. People have noted I have “staple sentences”. Mostly “oh wow!” “that’s nice!” and “oh no!”. I think I turn to these when I’m not sure what to say. Though I do genuinely like things that are nice. And I like telling people when I like things.

Like you, sexy blog reader ;).