The agony of social contact

Pixabay

It was early on in our relationship, when I bumped into my partner, whilst out with my friends one evening; we were walking along on opposite sides of the street.

“Oh, look, there’s Bob*.” Someone said and we called out and waved.

*Not his real name.

He gave us a tentative wave but carried on walking, he didn’t cross over or stop for a chat.

“That was a bit weird, wasn’t it?” One of my friends remarked.

I agreed with her and have (jokingly) berated him about it ever since.

The thing is, although I’m somewhat quick to condemn others for these little displays of social awkwardness, I’m all too guilty of committing social faux pas myself.

The slightest little social interaction can have the potential to create massive internal turmoil. The uncertainty of how to conduct myself in certain social situations sometimes makes me wish I’d stayed at home. From how to introduce yourself to strangers (on those occasions when you have to - weddings, parties, work conferences), to how to progress from small talk to proper conversation; it all throws me into a bit of a tiz. And I’m far better than I used to be, in the past I might spend an entire evening barely speaking to anyone, nowadays, if I’m with people I feel comfortable with, I can be quite loud. It’s just that, every now and again, the old discomfort raises its ugly head.

Having children added an extra level of complication to the proceedings. You were encouraged, nay expected, to take them all these mother and baby groups, soft play centres (shudder) and baby signing classes. It is vital, you are told, that your baby gets a chance to socialise (and catch a myriad of colds and stomach bugs) with other children. But, arghh! To walk into a room full of complete strangers - a lot of whom seemed to know each other already and have formed impenetrable friendship groups, is a complete nightmare for the socially ill at ease! Not to mention the tight little huddles at the school gates and in coffee shops. How are you supposed to join these masonic societies if you have trouble striking up conversations with people?

I did the whole Netmums ‘meet-a-mum’ thing (Internet dating without the promise of sex and with far more talk of weaning and growth spurts) with variable success - but that’s a whole other blog post. I made a couple of chums. First time motherhood can be incredibly lonely so it’s important to try and socialise - probably more so for you than for your baby, who is content to laugh at trees and chew pebbles, but, oh, it’s not an easy business for the terminally shy.

Here are some ‘Top tips’ for social interactions/Conversational openers, I’ve picked up along the way, some more useful than others.

1. Work related conferences, meetings etc - The roof (ie the location) is what you have in common - “How did you get here?” “Do you live far away?” “Does your job promote feelings of deep, existential angst?”  Blah, blah, blah.
2. Mother and baby deals - “How old is your baby?” “What’s their name?” “Have you had one of those exploding nappy situations yet? Where the liquid poo seems to reach every corner of the baby gro?”

If you have an inexplicably sociable child, like my oldest, they might do the legwork for you by running up to people and initiating a conversation, drawing you into some awkward verbal shuffling with another parent.

The thing about trying to overcome your introvert tendencies is that you often misjudge a situation, overcompensate by babbling, over sharing* or saying something inappropriate.

*E.g telling another mother in the park that you’d tried to get your children to behave by threatening to decapitate their favourite toys.

It also doesn’t help if you have a bitchy resting face. https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=978691151524409415#editor/target=post;postID=1619915649323573241;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=44;src=postname

So why am I writing about this now? We-ll I saw this woman on the bus the other day who I vaguely know. We’ve spoken a few times and, as well as being one of the ‘mums’ from the school, she also now works for the same organisation as me (but in a vast place where we’ve never actually bumped into one another). It was a miserable rainy, day; some bus had broken down, the bus we were on was fairly rammed and I saw her as I went onto the upper deck.

“Hello!” I said, brightly (I think).

“Alright.” She said, in what I felt was a distinctly lukewarm, ‘don’t sit next to me’ tone of voice.

So I didn’t, sit next to her, that is. I went towards the back of the bus and read my book. But the thing is, she now blanks me, whenever I see her at school. I find that this bothers me greatly because I don’t want to be thought of as being rude…

A wise woman has suggested that I am focusing all my attention on this (relatively) insignificant problem to avoid thinking about the more important issues in my life, and she’s probably right. But until I can find some other misdemeanour to mistakenly channel all my internal angst into, this is one of the things which will continue to torment me at 3 o’clock in the morning!

Good old Pixabay again