I don’t like meeting new people, but it seems to have molded itself into my daily cycle.
Sheer agony.
Make no mistake, I don’t dislike the idea. I dislike the process itself. Everything about the getting-to-know-you stage makes me uncomfortable. It makes me jittery. I tend to make really intricate friendships with a lot of hidden context piled in over the years. Without that solid ground, I’m lost. I don’t know what to say. Will he get this joke if I say it? Will this topic sound off if I suddenly mention it in relation to their conversation? Will I sound stupid, or arrogant, or just plain out weird?
What are these ‘social norms’ you speak of? More importantly can I lather that in cheese?
It doesn’t help that now that I’m out of high school, I realize the media’s depiction of college isn’t that far off from reality- well, in my college at least. Though not that confined to stereotypes, I’ve been finding it harder and harder to work out just how the hell I’d start off conversations and keep them going. I’m in the worst stages of the getting-to-know-you-phase and even more awful still is the fact that most of them are already clustered in groups with their own stream of banter.
And- get this, plot twist- I don’t think I actually want to know new people that much. It’s just that I don’t like pity, and some think that my constant wanderings and solitary walks around campus is something that I didn’t choose for myself. So I’m occasionally strung along parties and lunch periods with people I barely know, making polite and dead conversation that drains all my energy and soaks me up in anxiety.
Meeting new people has its ups and downs, I get that.
And I’m so frustrated hearing everyone say that you’re missing a lot by not ‘putting yourself out there’.
What exactly am I missing? I wouldn’t have met my best friends if I hadn’t gone through the getting-to-know-you stage, but they wouldn’t mean that much to me either if I didn’t dread said stage so much.
I guess this is all just going too fast for me and people already jumping ahead to conclusions about what I need, or who I need feels invasive.
I’m tired of meeting new people in this environment, but I seem to find myself going through the intro routine ever day.
Quite Callipygous 