Social Ineptitude (thanks a lot, Charlotte Bronte)

9/28/2011 Unknown 6 Comments

Instead of reading one-hundred-and-sixty-five pages of awfulness for one of my classes tomorrow, both Adele and Boyz II Men have successfully convinced me to revise their wonderful lyrics while doodling craptastic sketches just… for… you. Thank them later by listening to some of their wonderful hits (I Swear is a great place to start).

Unfortunately I don’t really have a specific direction for you today (maybe get used to this). SO, you’ll have to make do with an awkward incident from my week.

Picture me at my favourite table in the HBLL, poring through the excellent, excellent Jane Eyre. It was an especially exciting afternoon because I was getting to all of the good parts (let’s face it: there are some very skip-able pages), and consequently I was getting a little “Kristen Wiig” about my personal reading experience. Before I knew it, I had arrived at one of the best, most peculiar passages that just gets my heart racing. And, before I knew it, I had reached out my hand to clutch at the arm of my neighbor (as if for support), as I read Rochester’s struggle to explain how he felt about Jane:

I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.

If you can believe it, I managed to make it to the end of this paragraph without realizing that the arm I was still clasping at did not belong to anyone I actually knew or had ever spoken to in my entire life. Reality set in as I found myself staring into the most incredulous facial expression I had ever seen on a non-cartoon.

Did I let go immediately; gather my things and slip away with the appropriate amount of shame on my shoulders?

OF COURSE NOT.

I had to make things more awkward for the both of us, thinking I had a chance at recovering myself.

“I gotta read this to you!” I whisper desperately. His facial expression didn’t change a fraction as I proceeded to read a passage about ribs and string and internal bleeding. The couple sitting across from us adopted his look of stupor, and for every second their eyes bore into me, I grew a shade more red. It was one of those moments when your mouth is doing its own thing, meanwhile alarm bells are ringing in your head and you just know somewhere in that brain of yours a minute army of proud cells and neurons (not even going to pretend I know anything about science) are battling to find an “OFF” switch.

For some reason, in the moment, you convince yourself that things are “cool” and you still don’t leave. You sit there, sometimes actually counting the seconds, wondering when would be the appropriate amount of time to wait before you can leave, dignity in tact (you forget that that moment was way before you opened your mouth to begin with).

So there you have it: I effectively killed any interest that man might have had in beautiful literature, while undoubtedly pushing him into a girl-coma. SHAME too, because he was very handsome, in a Patrick Dempsey sort of way.

BALANCING OUT THE BAD: Awesome things that happened to me this week include:

1. Coming to the conclusion that I am sort of okay with FBD’s: Facebook Dates. My main arguments include a) at least he asked me out, b) he could be painfully shy, and c) no one wants to be rejected/ do the rejecting in the flesh (cowards are lovers too).

2. Turning down a NCMO with [almost] no deliberation over how fun said NCMO might be. Take that, natural man! I don’t even care how conceited I sound when I say that I am still super proud of myself.

3. Elder Uchtdorf (fellow foreigner) and forget-me-not’s.

4. Hearing that ex has let himself go- silly, petty pleasure, yes. But when you have had to cancel a wedding date because you found out that four other girls were also planning weddings, you secretly hope to one day hear these tidings. It finally happened.

5. Re-discovering the joys of the game MASH. Also winning Ryan Gosling as my probable future-husband. Sorry ladies.

Your Awkward Bronte- whispering,

Foreigner