Everyone is Awkward

An old boss once told me that he loved hearing stories about my awkward encounters. He found them completely hilarious and couldn’t wait for the next installment. After about 6 months, he mentioned to me that if I was always a part of these awkward encounters, maybe it’s not everyone else, maybe it’s me. If I’m the common denominator in all the stories, wouldn’t it make sense that I’m the awkward one in the situation? As much as I hate to admit it, he makes a very good point.

I am a self-proclaimed awkward individual. I know it and I own it pretty well. I think it’s my charming combination of unfiltered commentary combined with poor coordination. I’m pretty aware of my awkwardness, so I like to do what I can to make sure others don’t have to experience it to any huge extreme. Which leads me to the question: am I the only one that does that? 

I wouldn’t have thought twice about this question until this past week. Maybe Halloween brings out everyone’s awkward side, but I don’t think that’s it. I think that everyone is completely and totally awkward but only certain individuals know how to fall within societal norms and “pass” as normal. 

I feel like there are different extremes of awkward. I get embarrassed when I see people do things that are uncomfortable in public. For example, my office hosted a Halloween Costume Contest this week. Of course the only people that entered were these students that were extremely dressed up in costumes of characters that I’m sure only 1% of people on earth have heard of. In addition to dressing over the top, they also felt that it was acceptable to act like their characters in front of hundreds of people. What?! All I could do was stand there and force a smile (even though I was cringing with embarrassment on the inside). That may be the extreme of awkward and uncomfortable. I think the part that is scary is that they are college students. If they were in high school, we could convince ourselves that they can grow out of it. 

I don’t think being awkward has to be to that extreme. My friend’s FB status last weekend said the following: “OMG. So excited to hang out with my boyfriend today. We’re going to carve pumpkins, go hot tubbin’, and eat frozen yogurt!”. Let’s get past the fact that I’m calling this person my friend and move straight to what she is saying. First off, don’t ever use OMG. It just reminds me that you should still be in high school or that you read too many gossip magazines. Second, everyone knows that you have a boyfriend. You’ve mentioned it in every other post since you’ve been “facebook official”. Move on. I’m pretty sure your boyfriend is embarrassed by you. But the main awkward part of this post to me is the combination of activities that will be taking place. I understand that you are trying to explain how your whole day is going to pan out, but when you state it like you did in your post, I’m picturing you and your boyfriend sitting in the hot tub while carving pumpkins and eating frozen yogurt. Not only am I completely disgusted by this imagery, I also question what you consider a good time. Are pumpkin seeds falling in to the hot tub? Is your fro-yo melting? Don’t bring me in to those so-called intimate moments of your life. It makes me feel completely uncomfortable. 

My friend has provided me with a scale to better understand awkwardness. This only came about after I created a slightly awkward situation, but still, I appreciate his perspective. I told him that I needed to ask him a question that he might find uncomfortable, so I wanted to apologize in advance if it made him uncomfortable (see, that’s me being self-away… the exact opposite of the Halloween Costumed Crazies and the Creepy Hot Tub Couple). After asking the question, he said “on the continuum of awkward questions, that is much closer to "what is your name?" on the left than "what do you think about when you urinate?" on the right”. I’ll tell you right now, I took that as a compliment. I’ll also tell you that the fact that he has created this continuum proves my point that everyone is awkward.

Listening to Florence & The Machine.