Memoirs of an Outstanding* Teen

Chapter 21: How Awkward Can You Get?

One thing which I hope you got from the description of my early Grade 8 experiences is the fact that I'm an extremely awkward person. I'm a social question mark, okay. I'm the kind of person that would reply "I'm fine, how are you?" when you ask me what my name is. I'm the person that gets so stressed to talk on phones, that I would rather let a call go to voicemail 100 instead of answering. I'm the kind of person that has to spend 15 minutes thinking of the perfect reply to "What's up." In short, I don't find it very easy keep up simple conversations or to make new friends.

Now, I hadn't made any efforts to know anyone outside of Ms Annoyed Face and her group. So, in my new class, I had zero friends. I only knew the faces of a couple of kids who had been next to me on the Top Ten List in Grade 8 and 9. My plan to avoid looking awkwardly friendless in the class was to just sit by myself on one end of the class, reading one of the Afrikaans books I had bought.

One of my new classmates, let's call him Richard, was kind enough to notice that I was keeping by myself. And in an effort to, I guess, make me feel more welcome into the class, he decided to come up to where I sat to talk to me. The conversation that followed will dispel any doubts that you might still have about my social skills being completely inexistent.

"Hey, Nelu."

"Hi."

"I want to tell you a joke. So, an American was bragging to a Russian that America was the first country to go to the Moon. Then the Russian replied, 'But we'll be the first to go to the Sun!' Then the American replied, 'You can't go to the sun. It's too hot. Then the Russian replied, 'Of course we can. We'll just go at night.'"

"Haha."

No, I didn't forget to type out anything, and yes, you read that right. I laughed for 0.2 seconds and went silent, just stared at his face. If Guinness gave awards for the most awkward of silences, I think we should have gotten one that day. There were three seconds in which neither one of us said anything, Richard waiting for me to respond with something more that my "Haha" and me blanking out completely on what to say.

Richard ended up lifting the awkwardness off by saying a couple more things about Russians. Then he just stood up and went back to his desk. I felt awful.

I have replayed this scene in my mind so many times. And I've created at least 100 different ways in which it could have gone better.

If you find me at any time of the day, having that Socrates thinking look on my face, chances are that I'm imagining a conversation in my head and the different ways I could avoid reaching the level of awkwardness I got to with Richard. It sounds a little deranged, I know, but trust me, for someone like me, it's a necessity.