...awkward

that awkward moment when every social interaction is a crushingly painful disaster…

I had a haircut once. 

It was awful - not the actual haircut, which turned out surprisingly well considering my inability to articulate preferences regarding my appearance. Having high levels of social anxiety I found the entire experience incredibly stressful. I was overcome with the need to apologise for the state of my hair, and the fact that I would like it to be not terrible anymore but could not manage to fix it myself so needed to ask someone else to do so in return for money.

Conversation was a bit of an uphill struggle. At one point the I was asked if the water temperature was ok and I said yes, which went well enough, apart from the fact that it was in fact far too hot and the whole hair-washing part was rather uncomfortable. But just physically, not socially.

That came later. It had just got to the bit where they ask you if you’re going anywhere on holiday, and I was excited - firstly to find myself in a living, breathing cliché, and also because I did have a trip planned, so didn’t have to apologise for being the kind of failed human being whose own ineptitude prevents them from traveling. Spurred on by this feeling, I buoyantly announced:

I’m going to stay with my friends in America.

Which she unfortunately misheard, and being unable to correct her, I thought it better to spend the next 15 minutes lying about my friends in Marrakech. That’s a long time to talk about friends you don’t have in a country you have never visited. We chatted about the striking architecture and landscape, the fascinating culture and delicious food, and by the time we had got onto the subtleties of the visa process it was too late to turn back.

Then there’s eating in public. Particularly sushi, which is served in pieces larger than a mouthful, yet impossible to break apart with any degree of sophistication. I was having a good stab at it (both metaphorically and a literally) and attempting to follow the conversation, when I suddenly and urgently realised that that large piece of avocado I had just put in my face was in fact, wasabi.

Part of me wanted to scream “Fuck me, I just put a fuckload of wasabi in my face. Fuck!” But feeling this would be socially unacceptable I just nodded my way through the conversation and let it melt my brain. I may have cried a little from the sheer intensity of the heat, but it could have just been the runoff from my melted brain. We’ll probably never know now.

So I can’t have my hair cut or eat in public. I may as well go and live in the woods as a hairy, scavenging monster. Except I can’t. Because I can no longer leave my apartment.

The other day I had the misfortune to stand at the pedestrian crossing with a man. You wouldn’t think this would be a particularly strenuous social interaction, but you probably have haircuts and go out for meals all the time so you wouldn’t understand. We had been standing there for a while, which was bad enough, but then we began to walk at the same speed. I couldn’t speed up enough to pass him, but I also couldn’t slow down enough to let him get a respectable distance ahead without actually coming to a halt in the middle of the road.

When we got to the other side the worst happened and we continued in the same direction. Then the even worse happened and we both went up the same stoop. Of all the people I happened to do the awkward stalker walk with, it had to be someone who lived in my building. Then they ultimate blow – we headed for the same staircase.

At this point I was close to hyperventilating. When he stopped at his door on the first floor I was so dizzy with relief and too much oxygen that when he said “This is me, 1J. If there’s ever anything you need, you know where I live” I was in no position to navigate the etiquette of the situation. I was half-way up the stairs when I realised that I should probaby offer my own address, but half-way through giving it began to question that strategy. I felt the middle ground was to indicate vaguely where I lived.

I’m really high, so you probably won’t ever want to visit my apartment.

It was the best I could do under the time constraints, but it proved to be a grave tactical error when he replied “Sure, I don’t have any shit on me at the moment, but later sometime.” 

So now my downstairs neighbour thinks not only that I am permanently stoned, but that I feel the need to express this to people I have just met. And also that I am in favour of becoming stoned (or as he will see it, more stoned) with him in the future. This could make for an awkward second meeting, so my new policy has been to take the first couple of staircases tentatively, then peer from a safe vantage point to watch for activity outside his door.  I then make a dash for it down the remaining stairs, past his door and across the courtyard.

It’s the only sensible way to deal with these situations.