A few days ago, I came to the realization that I might be really outstandingly awkward. Weird awkward situations very often seem to occur in my presence. That doesn't mean I'm just unlucky very often, I noticed that I myself am awkward as well. And by trying to safe an awkward situation (because I realize how awkward I am at that moment), I probably make it worse seem even more awkward. I'm not really sure if my friends, acquaintances have noticed it since I'm more comfortable around them but I'm pretty certain that many strangers I only met once had the feeling I was a little dumb and odd. Actually some of my friends told me they thought I'm weird when they met me the first time.
Lately, whenever I'm in the public transport and see all these different strange people, analyzing them appeared to be a very entertaining business.
"Ha, this person is soo awkward and I bet she/he doesn't even know"
"I know she's talking to her dog on purpose so she gets everyone's attention"
and then be thinking that everyone is transparent and I track their behavior. But then I was like "Maybe someone is exactly observing me staring at someone" Maybe I'm staring in a totally obvious way. Ahh I don't know. Anyway, I started to question my appearance to the public. Suddenly so many awkward situations I've been in came to my mind.
One was not a long time ago. I had to help out at my dad's private practice on a saturday morning. My job was basically to sit at the front office and wait for patients to come in, then welcome him/her, tell that person to wait in the waiting room. "Good morning, please take a seat, the doctor will be seeing you just in a while". Or something like this. Oh god, it's even very awkward to say that sentence. It's just hard for me to be polite to someone when I don't really mean it. Anyway, I was really tired that day. I only slept like 3 hours. My only motivation to stand up and help out was obviously $$$. Only four patients were enlisted to come. Since there was a 1h gap between every patient, I decided to take a nap in the gaps. I usually study in the meantime but on that day, I just couldn't. So I put another office chair next to mine, adjusted the height of it made myself comfortable (I'm petite hence I can make myself comfy everywhere) and lay down. Obviously I fell asleep. The next patient, a tall man stood at the front office. I don't actually know how long he's been there. I was so embarrassed but instead of just standing up and greeting him, I acted like I was picking something up from the bag under the table. Since it's pretty clear he saw me sleeping PLUS acting to make him believe I was not sleeping, instead picking up something. Imagine you wait in at the front desk and see the office assistant is sleeping, then clearly see her noticing you and then again observe her pondering in the bag on the floor and acting like she didn't see you again, then being like "oh, hello".
Ha..
When I was 10 or something, I participated in a race event that took place annually. It was a big event called "De schnöuscht Schänker" or something. A few weeks before that event, someone in the Korean church told me that we Koreans are one of the fastest people due to our swift legs and physique (it's probably not true). But because of that, I was absolutely convinced I would win. Therefore I wasn't nervous at all and I remember that I did some stretching exercises in front of everybody with a very serious face and narrow eyes. Probably just to show off. It was my turn and I turned out to be the slowest!!! Like 15% before the finish, I acted like I hurt my ankle, stopped running and limped towards the finish line. I'm sure everybody knew I was acting but until the end, I acted like I was seriously injured. To make it worse, I hobbled the whole day, well, the whole week and the next day came to school with a bandage around my ankle. I'm sure everyone could detect that I wrapped my ankle with the bandage myself since it looked pretty shitty.
Another one was when I was 5 or 6, I think. I went to a kindergarten-mate's house to hang out and play games. I think his name was Tobias. I brought along a piece of glass (I think it used to be a part of a business card case thing or something) and only the logo of Korean Air was engraved on it. He asked me if I can read fluently. I couldn't but I said yes and started to read the glass thingy. Doesn't make sense at all but I remember he was fascinated by it. Fulfilled with pride, I kept on reading this stupid thing until his brother came in. I remember he was in elementary school already. He asked me what I was doing. Then, Tobias explained to him that I was able to read fluently. Of course his brother busted my lie and told Tobias to not believe what I say. Until the end, I kept insisting that I was actually reading this. I told him it was Korean what I was reading and that that was why he couldn't read it. For a moment he believed me, then he called his mom to ask if it was true. His mom confirmed his claim. Still, I kept insisting that I was able to read that stupid thing until it got really embarrassing.
In elementary school, there was a guy called Kevin. Nobody really liked him but I did. As far as I know, he turned into a neo-nazi later on in high school and now he is a left-positioned skinhead. Anyway, I was cleaning the floor when he came to me. He tapped me on the head with his A3 portfolio full of drawings and watercolor paintings. I'm sure he did that in a friendly way since I know he liked me (he told me once in a barn of a farm). In that moment, all his paintings and drawings fell out of his portfolio and showered me. Everybody was looking and laughing. Oh god, it was so embarrassing. I broke out of tears, threw the broom on the floor and ran away. That was an exaggerated reaction for sure. But I was so embarrassed that I acted to have been utterly hurt and didn't talk to him for a week until one day when he told me that he had developed a computer virus, which he named after me.
From my childhood until now, there were millions trillions situations like this. I think I will have to collect them and be fully conscious about them in order to analyze and improve my appearance. I just didn't notice it until now.
