One thing about awkwardness is that it isn’t always that an awkward person is 100% awkward, 100% of the time. That was a waffly sentence, wasn’t it. 

It is mostly context dependent. So, at times there are public interactions that are agonisingly uncomfortable but others that are oddly manageable. It also doesn’t necessarily mean similar situations will be equally as awkward. What feels easy on one day, can feel like a no-go the next. 

Let me give an example of that: So one day, I could go to a restaurant, converse with a server, order my food, enjoy my meal, pay, and leave. I could go to another restaurant the day after…

OK, maybe not the day after, whose dining out two days in a row in this economy?...

Anyway, other times I end up internally gearing myself up for this moment like my life depends on it, when all I’m ordering is fucking scampi and chips. 

When COVID hit and they enforced ordering and paying from the table via a link, that was like an awkward person’s ultimate dream. 

Then there are the self checkouts, which are lovely (bloody hideously angled cameras aside.) 

It did make it harder to integrate back in after all the restrictions. To be honest, I think this has massively affected a vast amount of people. Some who didn’t necessarily feel awkward or self-conscious before, that is a whole other topic though!

Another thing that is situationally triggering is strangers approaching me. 

Have you ever found yourself being stopped by a stranger and asked for directions and suddenly you sound like they’ve asked the village idiot who doesn’t know where the fuck anything is? 

Then you over-analyse it afterwards and panic that you had sent them completely the wrong way and suddenly feel that you are the worst human being in the entire world? No? Just me? …I know, I know catastrophising. 

It’s the abruptness of being asked I think but put that into a work setting and I can answer questions no problem. 

There are things I do to try and cope when I feel like I’m in a no-go kind of territory. 

One of them is writing stuff down on my phone when I’m ordering something, so that I don’t get flustered. 

It has the potential to make me feel even more awkward but at least I don’t forget what I’m saying.    

I also want to stress that although I’m talking about minimal interaction with people, it isn’t that I don’t like people.

 I really do.

 It’s just that, in my head, most of the time, I am already preemptively preparing an  apology for my existence before I even open my mouth. 

It’s that feeling that your awkwardness is a massive inconvenience to anyone and everyone. 

Do you ever feel like your awkwardness makes people feel weird?

Like it’s endearing to begin with, then it can feel like it becomes annoying. Your awkward and nervous energy is being felt and you are extremely aware of it. 

You are being seen.               

That tends to be a large part of awkwardness for me, being seen, taking up space. Of feeling like I need to earn the right to exist.  

I know that I am not alone in feeling that. 

And, I know awkwardness isn’t all bad. I mean we may bugger things up a lot, apologise for existing, overthink and that but we also notice the small things and show up in ways that other people don’t or can’t. 

We may have some struggles with allowing our width to expand,

figuratively not physically *put the biscuits down, Laura* 

… but we definitely have depth.