As much as I love to romanticize and court the times that existed before now, I also sometimes find myself  reminiscing more on the rather... unfortunate situations that I have endured in my sixteen years of life. Oddly enough, it's sort of like a teeter-totter because on one hand, I feel like a valiant trooper who has successfully (and clumsily) survived all the odds of awkwardness that has been thrusted upon her, but on the other hand I want to shamefully venture off into the deepest, unfathomable depths of the Amazon and finally evade the pain of my embarrassment. Dramatic, I know, but it’s a shamelessly bold confession. 

Like most people, I absolutely DEPLORE awkward situations, so I’m sure you can imagine my confusion when I KEPT EXPERIENCING THEM. It seemed like everywhere I went; it followed. 

At school, when I zoned out in history class and my teacher randomly called on me to answer a question I had ZERO knowledge of- I saw it rear its ugly head. 

At church, when an older person I didn’t know wanted to converse, utilizing restrictive small talk such as: “ my have you grown!”-It peered out from the pews. 

When trying to talk cordially to a boy I was attracted to and he completely disregarded me- it almost seemed to fully embrace me and whisper:” it’s okay, I’m still here”.

Whilst most of these situations were considerably minor offenses, I would replay them in my mind constantly, torturing myself with the other parties’ unpleasant reactions, thus recreating the same feeling of humiliation that occurred at that moment, time and time again. These little offenses would build up inside of me, and it eventually became something much greater than I ever expected it to be. 

At school, I would tremble in class at the thought of the teacher calling me when I was not ready to answer. At a social gathering, I would try my best to evade conversation by hiding in the bathroom, stealing away in the corner with a book, or by simply being stand-offish. I felt lonely and ostracized from social groups; however I was the one who excluded them from my life. In retrospect, I seemed to subconsciously blame others for my fragile ego and thus push them away from me as to salvage it. 

As a result, awkwardness became something that was just an occasional discomfort, to a heavy load that burdened me everywhere I went. 

So.. how did I resolve this, you ask? 

Well, in my experience, I found that doing this one thing, and this one thing only helped me resolve my problem: Embracing the CRinGE. 

Look, I know that it's CRinGE to even say the word “CRinGE”, but c’mon it’s for the greater good.

Anyways, I found that embracing these less-than-enjoyable moments rather than avoiding them, made me feel more confident and comfortable within my own skin. Instead of dreading the possibility of an interaction going wrong, I would simply embrace or accept the fact that it might occur and just go on with my life. At any time I knew that I would encounter a social interaction, I would say a mantra in my head; “If it’s awkward, it's awkward- then I live to see another day.” 

Simple, yet very effective. 

The first time that I was able to put this theory to work, was at my school’s annual music summer camp two years ago. All of us music students were clumped into a muggy theatre room and instructed by our counselors to do a “speed-dating” activity ( without the literal ‘dating’ portion) where we were placed in double lines at random that were pitted starkly across one another. The counselors’ would shout out a specific topic and we were supposed to ask the person across from us how they felt about that topic. We had a 30 seconds to speak, and after we were done speaking, the line moved down so that we were facing another person and would therefore have to talk about another one of the called-out topics.

So, as you can imagine, this was quite the difficult task for a shy person like me. Actually, it seemed to be a trying task for everyone, who all seemed to look around frantically for the security of their best friend's presence. I began to feel my body stiffen; I was almost rooted to the spot with anxiousness. I looked around at all the different faces, some of them friendly and some of them not, and took a deep breath. I saw that the one person across from me was a boy who was rude to me at one point in time. I closed my eyes and thought:" If it's awkward, its awkward- then I live to see another day". Though I was still nervous, I was happy that I had a nice conversation with him and others, as I was able to familiarize myself with new people.

Yes, I did fumble over my words at times, but the more I found myself accepting that these inconveniencing things would occur and that they were okay, the more I was able to flush out all the fear that would hang over me when I attempted to socialize. 

The more I decided to " Embrace the CRinGE", the more I found myself less succeptible to feeling it. The more I shifted my focus from how weird I would be, or how awkward I would come off- the more I was able to learn about and enjoy the other person speaking to me.

After all, a conversation is supposed to be a two-way street, no?

So my little SATs ( Socially-Awkward Teens), I know its easier said than done to happily accept the possibility of embarrassment while socializing, but please, try your best to get through it. We should never let fear dictate our lives because if so, are we truly living?

The next time you find yourself clamming up during a social interaction, don't forget to breathe, and think on this mantra: " If it's awkward, it's awkward- then I'll live to see another day"....

And always, ALWAYS aim to Embrace the CRinGE.

You can do it, champ! I'm rooting for you!

Sincerely,

Your Teenage Sage <3