Awkward Situations

In lieu of an awkward situation I just forcibly endured, I've decided to write a blog post on them.

In case you are wondering what exactly an "awkward situation" entails by my standards, it's when you are forced into a social situation that you'd rather die than experience. Anyone who knows me personally would be very surprised to find out that I actually dread most social situations-- shocking, I know. My least favorite of all social situations has to be the "forced interaction" social situation.

I guess the best way to describe "forced interaction" would be to tell you of a time that I had to suffer through one. This happened less than fifteen minutes ago, so it's still fresh.

At 2pm every Wednesday, I make my way to a little coffee shop on campus to order my lunch. I must preface by saying that I look forward to this one hour of "alone time" every day, where I can just eat my lunch, not having to pretend to be interested in the drama of anyone else's life. Normally, I sit in the far corner of this coffee shop, because both chairs at said table face towards the wall and I can avoid eye contact best at this location. I don't know what exactly possessed me to change my normal routine-- because I am a very routine-based person-- but I decided to sit at a different table, and of the two chairs, I  opted to sit at the one facing the entry doors. This was a mistake, I came to find.

After I ordered my food and returned to my seat, my anxiety level began to exponentially grow. If my anxiety was to be graphed, it would look like this, I'm sure:

Anyway, the moments prior to the arrival of my sandwich were like my own personal little hell. I was filled with feelings of dread at the thought of a familiar face walking through that door-- what if we made eye contact? Then a whole slue of common-practice social interactions would follow, such as smiling or waving-- maybe a brief conversation about our respective demeanor for that day-- I was starting to sweat at the thought alone.

I eyed the chair in front of me... all I need do is move to that chair and I'd be home free. My back would be to the door and if anyone entered that I knew, I could pretend that I didn't see them. I even had my ipod sitting next to me to help reinforce the idea that there was no possible way that their presence could ever be brought to my attention. Instead of moving, I opted to sit there in a fit of my own anxiety.

I guess the universe has a sense of humor because two familiar faces soon appeared through the entrance doors. Great. Now, had these been people that I felt very comfortable with, this would not be a problem. But, no. It was my younger sister's suite mate, whom I have had a total of three conversations with, and my father's fiance's son. You would think that He and I would be close, considering that eventually, we will be forced-family. Wrong. It was obvious that he was dreading the impending social interaction just as much as I was-- at least I could feel content in knowing that my discomfort would not be suffered alone.

I like to refer to the first five minutes of this experience as the "BATTLE OF AVOIDANCE"-- and boy, we were pro. We were both in visible range if each other, but it was as if suddenly we were terribly occupied with something across the room-- so occupied that we had to stare it down with a look of pure concentration on our faces. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, and I was impressed with his ability to pretend that I was non-existent.

Everything was going according to plan, and I could tell that we were counting down the minutes until their fruit smoothie order was complete and escape was possible-- right as I was mentally applauding our efforts, the lady making their smoothie caught me staring my "intense glare of intensely concentrated concentration" in her general direction, which I can only assume she took to mean, "SAY HI TO ME OR ELSE", because she smiled and waved. This would have been a perfectly nice gesture if it had not forced the people immediately to the right of her-- the two individuals I was aiming to avoid eye contact with-- to glance in my direction. At this point, there was no avoiding it-- we had to wave. We did our best to act surprised at the appearance of one another, as if it was so outrageous that two people of the same college would choose to eat lunch at the same on campus coffee shop.

It figures that immediately following our painful social interaction, our respective food orders were completed and my awkward companions were able to leave. God really does have a sense of humor.