It has been a while since my last blog, but here I am back
with more to say about the confusing place that is my brain. I’ve talked about
issues with socialising before, but I’m aware that there is one crucial part to
socialising that I didn’t touch on before – the initial greeting. Through an
awful lot of observation and practise, I have by now managed to master the art
of small talk, I can participate in conversations with people quite well
providing I’m interested in the subject and I’ve learnt to pepper my talk with
thoughtful questions about the other person, but one thing that still fills me
with dread, and which I don’t think I will ever feel comfortable with, is perhaps
the most simplest interaction of all – saying hello!
The main occasion that this simple interaction fills me with
dread, is when I am simply walking past someone, such as a stranger on the
street, or a colleague in the office. As we approach each other I feel awkward
and panicky as I desperately try to decide how I’m going to handle the
situation. What I want to do is keep my head down, completely avoid eye contact
and fail to acknowledge their presence, staying nice and safe in the comfort
zone that is my own head. However, I know enough to know that doing so would
appear rude. So a million things run through my mind: shall I make eye contact?
shall I say hello, or just smile? do they expect me do anything, or can I get
away with pretending I haven’t seen them at all? Usually I panic through these
thoughts until the last possible moment, and then force myself to make eye
contact and either smile or say hello – and I hate having to do this. If
possible I will whip my phone out and pretend I’m doing something on it to
avoid the awkward dance that I don’t really know the steps to, or I’ll even
take a longer route somewhere to avoid people.
The same can be said for the coffee place in work. It’s the
same meaningless niceties of greeting and negotiating space with other people
that makes me extremely uncomfortable. I will sit at my desk for an hour or
more wanting a drink, but having to wait until the coffee area is clear of
people so that I don’t have to worry about what kind of greetings they might
expect of me. I’m always mortified if I head there when it’s empty and someone
else gets there before me.
I also struggle with saying hello when I initiate a
conversation with someone else. There have been times when I’ve gone to talk to
people and launched straight into the subject I want to discuss only to be
quickly interrupted with a sarcastic ‘Hello Sarah!’ at which point I realise I’ve
failed to follow the expected rules of conversation. Sometimes the act of
saying hello just seems pointless to me when there are other more important
things to get to.
It’s hard to explain why this is so difficult to me, but I
think it’s because it’s such a small subtle interaction that I just don’t understand
how to do it, or if I’m doing it right, it’s causing me so much energy in the
thought processes going into it, that it makes me feel extremely uncomfortable
and awkward. It’s also true that the fleeting eye contact required is no small
part of why it makes me feel uncomfortable. I put a lot of thought into
regulating eye contact as it is, but the small amount required when greeting someone
in passing means that it’s very difficult for me to gauge the appropriate
amount to be made.
My son seems to have similar issues, and I’m currently trying
to get him to say hello and goodbye to people, which he usually does without
making any eye contact. I confess I sometimes use him as a way to deflect the responsibility
of saying it myself. If I look like I’m focussing on getting him to say hello
and goodbye I am looking at him, not the other person, which is more
comfortable for me, and I don’t have to say anything to them. The truth is I
could quite happily dispense with saying hello to people as the practise often
makes me feel so uncomfortable that I can’t see myself ever feeling at ease
with it.
