Awkward Living

You ever go out with some friends and notice that one person that’s a complete social butterfly? He or she is bursting with charisma and personality and has the entire group in awe at their social finesse. They’re fantastic and so god damned magical.

Then you notice that you’re just standing around uncomfortably and twiddling your fingers. You couldn’t feel more out of place. Occasionally, you try to join in and be social with everyone else, but you fumble with your words and end up doing the verbal equivalent of vomiting all over the group. If that isn’t met with an awkward silence, I don’t know what is. They’re your friends, and they love you, but no one likes being thrown up on.

Well, that’s happened to me more times than I care to disclose. My friends do love me. We have each other’s backs, and I’m pretty sure they still like hanging out with me despite my social retardation. However, I’m just…awkward. I am a creator of awkward silences, more often than not. I’ve come to accept that it is a part of my nature, but I still feel out of place, sometimes.

Really, the best thing to do is to accept awkwardness, in my opinion. I am very aware that there are books and seminars out there constructed just for the purpose of teaching people how to be more sociable, but some people will never be charismatic and socially gifted. I’m one of them. Ever since I’ve embraced my awkward personality–not just accepted it, embraced it–my social interactions have been much easier. I’ve worked my awkwardness into a sort of charm that a lot of people just think is cute. When you have embraced who you are, people take notice.

I’m not saying that you should ever stop working towards self-improvement, though. I just think that sometimes, you need to accept yourself for who you are. I accept myself as an awkward creature, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still try to learn social grace. It’s an important skill to have. However, if I was just focused on my social failings instead of embracing who I am, that would do more damage to my social life than being awkward ever could. Insecurity shows, too, and it doesn’t show itself very positively.

What I want to make clear is that awkward living doesn’t have to be a bad way of living. You can still have fun and have strong relationships with other humans whilst being your special, awkward self. Embrace awkward living. Make it your own.

Awkwardly Yours,

-Jaimie

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