Friday, January 20, 2012

Returning to the states

Currently, I'm working on being the most awkward person I know in my life, and I'm doing pretty well in this contest. When strange men who seem to be twice my age flirt with me on the train, my tactic is to show them how weird I am to throw them off. On one particular instance, I proceeded to show a man all the photos on my camera phone of my pet tortoise (of which I have an embarrassingly large number of photos). 

This tactic, however, may backfire as some guys are into the 'crazy factor', which is apparently something I possess (according to my best friend in a discussion on who would win in a physical fight). OR they have something worse which is known as 'desperation'. Whenever I feel uncomfortable or nervous I have a tendency to smile and talk more, which gives the totally opposite impression.  To be honest, I have only recently returned to a place where I am regularly speaking English with educated people, so I'm a little thrown off by any and all conversation in English. This usually results in me getting really nervous and stressed out and saying whatever comes to mind. 

Examples include relating a story about hamsters that my 15 year old cousin told me. Among other conversational topics I include my digestive health or some depressing anecdote about violence against women in rural India. I can't keep my mouth shut, and more often than not, I relish the time I have alone where my conversational faux paus are nonexistent or in the presence of my ever-forgiving mother. 

I should probably get out more.

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