I have a problem. Well I have many problems but this is a major one. Is as much as it sums up in so many way why it ain’t easy being me. I’m a pretty gregarious person. I’m comfortable with my own company but I like being around people. Except people I don’t know that well. Once I know them I am fine.
I have what the psychologist I work with might call a mild anxiety disorder. I just think I am clumsy and socially inept. I have lost count of the amount of times I have inadvertently offended people, mainly women. I used to beat myself up about this but have come to accept it as just being who I am. I don’t blame myself for being no good at football. I’m just not. And its much the same for social niceties. I am crap at them.
My particular little problem at the minute is the problem of which parents to say hello to in the schoolyard when dropping my daughter off. There are three categories. Those who I ignore, not in an ignorant fashion you understand. Just I don’t know them and my daughter doesn’t know their child so we have nothing to say hello about. Then there are the group of about 15 who I always say hello to. These are people whose kids my daughter knows and I have met at parties.
Then there is the troublesome class. These are the parents who I sort of know. My daughter may occasionally mention them and we have had the odd conversation. Do I say hello to them. Sometimes their kid is playing up a bit and they don’t want to say hello and if I blunder in with my hello it’s the last thing they need. But if I don’t and we catch eyes at the last minute it looks like I’ve ignored them until they said hello.
Then there is the dad who I had one conversation with once and we are stuck in a constant daily nodding and helloing that quite frankly we both could do without. When I see him approaching my heart sinks and I can tell his does to. But we’re both English and well mannered and neither of us could bare the thought of not saying hello. Because what kind of sociopath does that.
So we keep saying hello and alright mate every morning and every day death comes a bit closer and I am stuck in this circular hell that I can’t get out of without moving my daughter to a new school.
Like I say. Not easy being me…or anybody I guess.
I have what the psychologist I work with might call a mild anxiety disorder. I just think I am clumsy and socially inept. I have lost count of the amount of times I have inadvertently offended people, mainly women. I used to beat myself up about this but have come to accept it as just being who I am. I don’t blame myself for being no good at football. I’m just not. And its much the same for social niceties. I am crap at them.
My particular little problem at the minute is the problem of which parents to say hello to in the schoolyard when dropping my daughter off. There are three categories. Those who I ignore, not in an ignorant fashion you understand. Just I don’t know them and my daughter doesn’t know their child so we have nothing to say hello about. Then there are the group of about 15 who I always say hello to. These are people whose kids my daughter knows and I have met at parties.
Then there is the troublesome class. These are the parents who I sort of know. My daughter may occasionally mention them and we have had the odd conversation. Do I say hello to them. Sometimes their kid is playing up a bit and they don’t want to say hello and if I blunder in with my hello it’s the last thing they need. But if I don’t and we catch eyes at the last minute it looks like I’ve ignored them until they said hello.
Then there is the dad who I had one conversation with once and we are stuck in a constant daily nodding and helloing that quite frankly we both could do without. When I see him approaching my heart sinks and I can tell his does to. But we’re both English and well mannered and neither of us could bare the thought of not saying hello. Because what kind of sociopath does that.
So we keep saying hello and alright mate every morning and every day death comes a bit closer and I am stuck in this circular hell that I can’t get out of without moving my daughter to a new school.
Like I say. Not easy being me…or anybody I guess.
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