Socially Awkward

I want you to know I’m not as inarticulate as you think I am. I just have trouble talking to people. Or around people. I’m thirty-one years old and I’m just starting to realize that I have this problem. That the common denominator of all the things that stress me out – at work, in class, in social settings – is talking to people. It’s not that I don’t like people. I love people. I find them fascinating. And inspiring. Some of them. Many of them intimidate me. Some of them make me wish I were something else, like a dolphin. But for the most part, I love people. I just wish I could talk to them.

When I try to talk to someone, or worse, join a discussion, the wheels of my brain start turning faster than my tongue will move.

Anyway I just think, and some thoughts are profound and some are just pointless. Like Britney Spears gossip. Why is that in there? I don’t need that disrupting some insight I’m having about human interaction and the fragmentation of our society? Why can't I get the insightful and witty thoughts out through my mouth. All that comes out is mumbled gibberish.

This has to be a recent development. I used to be a talker. I have trophies to prove it. In debate, oral interpretation, and oratory. I almost went to Nationals in Oratory. (Christ that’s nerdy, but it’s true. I was in the final round, I got a plaque, it was a proud moment. And bittersweet.) It’s only in recent years that the thought of having to ask a question about a project makes my palms sweat. I was a director, a stage manager for god’s sake. I could communicate clearly, lead a group. So what happened?

Theory 1: 21st century media have shorted out my brain. I can no longer think in a linear fashion. Every thought is punctuated by a footnote, a hyperlink, a picture in a picture. The news crawl. There’s something neurological going on that makes my brain move faster than my mouth.

Theory 2: Smoking weed has shorted out my brain. I’m like the melty girl with the talking dog in the anti-drug commercials. Or the stoner comedy character who forgot to grow up. Marijuana has, as promised in Reefer Madness, damaged my brain and made me anti-social.

Theory 3: Anti-depressants have shorted out my brain. I’ve been on them since I was 18. I’ve tried to stop taking them a few times, but each time my whole life fell apart and I went back on. I asked my psychiatrist why they call these drugs non-addictive when the results of not taking them look a so much like withdrawal. He said the difference is that people don’t resort to anti-social behavior to get the anti-depressants. He has a point, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that the drugs have fried my brain. .

Theory 4: Everybody feels socially awkward. Possibly for one of these reasons. Possibly for other reasons. But it’s perfectly normal

Theory 5: High school forensics trophies aside, I have always been this way. My boyfriend has told me straight out that I have the same social awkwardness as my father. I’m afraid he’s right. That would explain so many things.

And yet: my father has many interesting friends. They are all wonderful people, an eclectic mix of thinkers and artists and musicians and teachers. When I flew home for his 60th birthday party, I boasted that all of the interesting people in St. Louis would be there. I’ve always wanted to have friends like his. Some days, when I make connections between people, introduce interesting friends to each other, I feel like it could happen.