![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/225\/2013\/10\/ThatAwkwardMomentthatawkwardmoment30760135750600.jpg\" "\\"ThatAwkwardMomentthatawkwardmoment30760135750600\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nThat awkward moment when you finally meet someone you\u2019ve been wanting to meet for a while and you jump up to say hi, knock your chair over, awkwardly try to save the situation while ignoring your clinging, whining 4-year-old, then finally give up and erratically try to exit the conversation while covered in children, only to realize later that you had food stuck in your teeth the whole time. (Your front teeth\u2026and I mean all<\/em> of them.)<\/p>\n That moment seems to be happening to me with alarming frequency. It\u2019s the rare occasion, these days, when I brave the world of IRL social interactions without coming away feeling certain<\/em> that I\u2019m wearing a hat of ass.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been bugging me. Quite a bit, actually. A few months ago I was toying with this theory that I had developed some sort of social anxiety, but when we were in Texas I was just the same way I\u2019ve always been. Social awkwardness was only encountered in the places where I expected it to be (read: strangers and authority figures), not lurking in every conversational nook and cranny.<\/p>\n Tonight on the way home, I was telling the Ogre that I just feel so stupid<\/em> when I talk with my mouth. I am not one of those people who work out ideas by talking about them. The Ogre is like that\u2026he has his best ideas in class, and then kicks himself for not recording them. But he also thinks when he talks. I mean, you can visibly see the wheels turn (a-ching-ly-slow-ly) in his brain as he says, \u201cummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm\u201d and even though you sometimes wonder if maybe he\u2019s forgotten where he is and what he\u2019s talking about, or if he might be having a stroke, you know that when that eternal um finally draws to a close, brilliance will spew forth in its wake. The Ogre\u2019s umming is like Zeus\u2019s forehead cracking open: no one wants to have to witness that shit, and everyone\u2019s looking at each other like \u201cwhat the hell is happening? Should we call 911? Isn\u2019t there a god in charge of dealing with this crap?\u201d but then BAM! out comes Athena. And everyone is properly schooled.<\/p>\n Me, I want people to like me, and I want to like them. I enjoy people, and usually people enjoy me. So naturally, I\u2019ve always considered myself a social person\u2026certainly more social than my Athena-birthing-husband.<\/p>\n What I realized today, though, is that the total social awkwardness I\u2019ve experienced lately is actually not<\/em> an aberration. Thinking back over my life, I\u2019ve pretty much always been excruciatingly enthusiastic in real-life conversations with new people. Not, like, in a sane and balanced way, though. Like in the kind of way where I will literally have a conversation with someone one day and agree with their position, and then I\u2019ll have a conversation with someone else the next day and agree with the exact opposite position. But what\u2019s awful is that I mean<\/em> it. I\u2019m not a deliberate social chameleon, but when people talk, I listen. Just not critically. I listen like an unwashed hippie at a Vietnam Protest rally: I don\u2019t care who they are or what they stand for, I\u2019m there<\/em>, man. I get it. They are right on<\/em>. Plus I have life experience that prove<\/em> their position is the right one, and we are totally on the same page, and by the time the conversation is over I\u2019m already mentally beading our BFF bracelets.<\/p>\n 12 hours later, I\u2019ll probably have forgotten the entire conversation, retaining only the vague sense that I really like<\/em> that person. It isn\u2019t until the fourth or fifth time I hang out with a person that I feel comfortable enough\u00a0 to stop trying so hard to be agreeable. This is an acceptable (although certainly uncool) way to handle social interaction in high school and college. I think it\u2019s probably an acceptable way to handle social interaction forever, if you\u2019re a confirmed sanguine<\/a> like me.<\/p>\n But the critical thinking I can\u2019t manage in actual conversation I find quite easy in writing. I\u2019ve said it before, but writing is the way I think. I don\u2019t sit and ponder things\u2026even when I try, I\u2019m distracted by something else and knee-deep in a new thought or project before I even remember that I was supposed to be thinking of the first thing. Writing helps me keep track of myself. It allows me to order my thoughts, examine my conscience, and find balance. It\u2019s through writing that I figure out what I actually do<\/em> think about things\u2026if I didn\u2019t write, I\u2019d just agree with the opinion of whomever had influenced me the most recently. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m a flake or that I don\u2019t have my own ideas; it\u2019s just that prewriting is the only way I can find the unruly end of the tangled thread of my thoughts, and writing is the only way to give it a good tug and straighten it all out.<\/p>\n The problem, though, is blogging. Honestly, blogging is so weird. People read what I write and say things like \u201cyou\u2019re so funny<\/a>!\u201d and \u201cwow, you are really thoughtful<\/a>\u201d and \u201cyou\u2019re a librul <\/a>feminazi <\/a>who wants to keep women barefoot and pregnant<\/a> to make babies for the Pope<\/a> while destroying my childhood memories<\/a>\u201d and I think, wait, what? Are they talking about me? <\/em><\/p>\n I didn\u2019t know I was funny until I started blogging. The Ogre always said I make him laugh, but I just assumed that was because I say ridiculous things and trip a lot. I didn\u2019t know I had the ability to think critically about current issues and form opinions that didn\u2019t match up with the ones I had been spoon-fed until I started blogging. I didn\u2019t know I was a kind of a liberal, kind of a feminist, and kind of a mysogynist, Thomas the Tank Engine-hating shill for the Pope until I started blogging.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the cool part about blogging: self-discovery. The uncool part is when I meet people who have read my blog before they\u2019ve met me, and I know they\u2019re expecting complete, coherent sentences but what they get are knocked-over chairs and overly enthusiastic babbling.<\/p>\n And that, right there, is what I hate the most about the internet. It isn\u2019t that it obscures who you are (though it can), or that you can put your best foot forward (though you can); it\u2019s that it only shows half the picture. My best friend Meg can read this post without one iota of surprise because she knows me, and she knows that I knock chairs over in my rush to agree with everyone while my brain\u2019s filter-after-the-fact is subconsciously assembling a counter-argument. She also knows that I can\u2019t carry a tune, that I read while I blow-dry my hair, that I can\u2019t cook Chinese food or keep the sink clean, and that I really do know every single word to Mmmbop and will prove it, even if no one else wants me to. But she had to suffer through cheery, sycophantic, agreeable Calah before she really met me.<\/p>\n