Social Awkwardness

Yesterday Janet hosted a dinner for people from her ward and friends and such. As always, the food was spectacular and a good time was had by most. I say most because I had several moments of uncomfortableness. I have gone on one date with Janet's hometeacher Mike (who has been code named Cuatro), and had a non-descript time, which is not a good time or a bad time, it was simply that we passed time in polite but unmemorable conversation. For me it was disappointing because good stories do not come from bland dates.

 So what happened to make me uncomfortable, complete and total social awkwardness. I shall tell you! I was sitting with Melinda and a group of her friends on blanket arranged like so.

I was facing into the circle so I could see everyone because I don't like not seeing people when I talk to them. We were having a fantastic conversation about life and exectations and disappointment when Mike came over and crouched down in my blind spot like so.

It was a horrible position. I had to turn my head more than 45 degrees to see him, and it was a painful position to hold for any period of time, and since we were in the middle of sharing our thoughts it was a bad time for him to expect my attention. So I said "Hi" but continued in my conversation. He crouched there for a few minutes, saying little and then walked away before there was a lull in the topic. After he had moved away Melinda, who had a clear view of him, commented about how dissappointed he looked about things. Of course I felt a pang of regret that he felt bad, but had no interest in doing anything to give him hope that we could have a relationship. (Believe me, he's not the one for me...)

But what really went wrong? First was his seating selection. He sat "next" to me but not within my field of vision. This required me to end eye contact with everyone except him if I was look at him as I spoke to him. For it to be comfortable, I would have had to turn my body around completely and then turn my back on the people I was already talking to. He could have avoided this if he had either sat closer to Melinda so he would be in my line of sight or sat by Kris so he would be directly across from me. But he didn't do that, did he...

Second, he stayed outside of the conversation, giving the appearance that he wanted to separate me from the herd so to speak. I found this threatening because in my mind he wanted to cut me off from one conversation and monopolize me in a conversation with only him, which would have been the typical polite blandness I so detest. He didn't stay long enough to introduce himself or be introduced, and made a few comments of agreement before he wandered off dejected.

It was awful and will probably haunt me for a while more, but hopefully someone can learn from my experience... I just don't know what they'd learn...