Human awkwardness is a fun thing to watch, but only when it happens to other people and not so much when it happens to you. Yesterday, I wrote a post about all the awkward things we tend to do in social situations and I am glad by the response I received.
I was also quite relieved to find out that I was not the only one that did all those things! Boy, that would have been super awkward and also ironical considering the topic of the post! haha.
Anyways, I’m not done exposing the awkward side of us humans and so I am writing this part II post, listing a few more ways the brains of introverts decide to stop working properly in the presence of other brains in the vicinity.
Also, do tell me in the comments section some other awkward things that you have either noticed or done yourself. The most hilarious one will get a full upvote from me :D
1. Trying (and failing) At Small Talk
Awkward silences. Who doesn’t love those right? Wrong!! Everyone hates that period of silence which is just a few moments in reality but feels like an eternity. And the worst part is that it is bound to happen when you’re talking with strangers.
The reason for that is that most people aren’t good at small talk. For those of you who don’t know, small talk is the random, unimportant conversation that we usually have with people during social occasions.
So, when you can’t come up with another topic to talk about, there are moments of silences which are as painful as the deaths of your favorite character in Game of Thrones!
And then you have exchanges like these that make you want to crawl into a hole and disappear:
Person A: Hey, how are you? Person B: I’m good, what about you? Person A: I’m good. What about you? Person B: ...........
2. Using Insane Excuses To Escape!
So, you are at a party and you are either getting extremely bored or extremely uncomfortable seeing all those extroverts having fun with each other. What do you do? Excuses to leave, of course!!
All you want to do in that moment is fall into the warm embrace of your bed back at home and you would do or say anything to escape that social situation. So, you start to come up with excuses.
That is all well and good, but often times, the excuses sound so insane and obviously like….well excuses, that it creates a moment of awkwardness among all parties involved.
So, you can’t really say things like “I have to attend my friend’s cousin’s pet’s funeral and so I need to leave.” or that “My aunt just called. She needs help baking cookies. She lives in China btw. So….gotta go catch that flight. Bye!”
3. Sharing Too Much!
There is always that one person at any gathering who just starts sharing too much information about their life that you feel like stopping them midway and shouting, “Dude! What are you doing? Do you have no concept of boundaries?”
You see, when you’re meeting new people or meeting them even for a second or third time, you get to know them and they get to know you, a little by little. That’s how friendships are built. You don’t dump your entire life story in the first meet.
Yet, some people insist on telling you how they lost their first pet a million years ago and start getting all emotional in front of you when you don’t even know them and you’re standing there not knowing whether to console them or just teleport out of there!
4. Pretending To Be Busy In Your Phone
What is the number one thing today that we do when we feel the slightest bit uncomfortable in any given situation? That’s right! We whip out our phones from our pockets like a boss, and start scrolling and swiping left and right.
Why do we do this? For one, it shifts our focus from having to face other human beings to the familiar world of internet we all know and love and also it makes us look busy and so other passing human beings won’t disturb us.
That is all fine and dandy but what really happens when we start using our phones is that we endlessly keep swiping left and right (often on the home screen) until we realize some time later what we are doing or someone else does, in which case, things can get super awkward.