Today, instead of talking about doing the same things over and over, I thought I’d talk about getting over my social awkwardness.
When I was younger, 8 or so, I was pretty social. I had lots of friends and was around a lot of people on a regular basis. But as I got older I strayed away from taking all the social opportunities I got. We moved from my hometown when I was 9 and I lost most of the friends I had, and when we moved I began to make friends just to have moved again.
By the time we moved for the second time I gave up on making friends. It seemed so unrealistic to be able to make friends, much less keep friends. Over time I grew to the point where every time the subject of ‘Meeting people’ or ‘Making friends’ came up I got mad. For a long time I thought it was because people were making fun of me for not having friends, or thought less of me for not being around as many people as most kids my age were. But over time I realized it wasn’t other people’s opinions that made me mad, it was mine. My stubbornness to not try and meet people, my opinions on how having friends would never last – that’s what made me mad. I was mad at myself for not taking the chances I was given for friendship due to my closed mind or my fear of losing them later on.
When I was 13 I had a friend, a good friend. We still sometimes talk. And through that friendship I learned that it was good to have friends. It wasn’t such a horrible thing I’d always made it up to be. It was fun to be able to relate to someone my age about my likes and dislikes.
I moved again last year and instead of trying to make loads of friends, I passed up almost any and all social advantages I was given. The past few months I’ve wanted to get a job and one of the main reasons I was reluctant was because of the social responsibilities it entailed. So when my Mom came up with the idea for me to work at the gym I was all for it despite the social parts that I feared.
I think that’s when you know you really want something. When you do it despite your fears.
The first few days of work I struggled to say a “Good morning,” or a “How are you?” but now it’s become such a normal thing. A big part of what made it easy was the fact I genuinely do care if the people at that gym had good mornings or if they were doing good.
I hope you all enjoyed this blog post! Talk to you next time!