Well, that was Awkward

For the most part, I function well in social settings, but there’s still a large part of my brain dedicated to making things more awkward than they need to be. Anytime I’m caught off guard, the awkward portion of my frontal lobe signals to release awkward hormones into my bloodstream and they cause me to do stupid things like speak or not speak, whichever would be more socially crippling. Or, better yet, I’ll just say, “Awkward,” without any further explanation.

Brain, we’ve been doing this for 27 years. If you’ll excuse the pun, let’s be a team and keep our best interests in mind. You don’t force me to do anything stupid, and I promise to listen to some classical music and drink some pomegranate juice. By God, I can and will stab you with a q-tip if you cross me. Don’t tell me that I’ll just perforate an eardrum because I ALREADY KNOW THAT!

I guess the only real way I can threaten my brain with any lasting violence would involve alcohol or a traumatic brain injury. My goal is to reduce the amount of awkward moments in my life and neither of those conditions seem conducive for helping my cause in the long run.

I only bring this subject up because tonight at Easter dinner  I managed to say something incredibly awkward and nothing needed to be said at the moment. I could have simply let the comment go and pretended that nothing happened. NOPE. Mouth opens, and before I knew it, I had scrolled through the rolodex of awkward reactions and loaded the best one into the system. I wonder if my life is a sitcom where I simply have perfect comedic timing for an unseen studio audience. An unseen studio audience who also happens to hate me or enjoys seeing the protagonist bumble his way through life. If this is true, I am owed so many royalties.

I think the problem is that not a lot of things do catch me offguard, but when something does, it can really stagger me. I am not going to explain how I was awkward tonight, at least not on the internets. If you’re curious, I will tell you in person and you can laugh at me or if you’re nice, commiserate. Either are acceptable at this point.