Awky mo!

I've had a few conversations with people this week that I either know but not very well or people that are pretty much strangers where afterwards or even mid-conversation I feel the urge to put my head in my hand.

I don't feel awkward with my family or friends that I've know for a while but with new people I can feel like one big ball of awkward.

And these awkward moments are nothing major, they're not disastrous just me muddling myself up, saying things and thinking they've been misinterpreted, just small little things.

Sometimes when I tell people that I quite often feel socially awkward and they know that I'm an improvisor (creating scenes/plays without a script) and  a teacher they really can't understand it. But to me these are very different things, when I'm on stage I'm not me so there isn't any awkwardness and when I'm teaching well the awkwardness can still be there too!

I prefer:

Talking to people one on one
Deep conversations about meaningful things rather than small talk
Listening rather than talking
Meeting in quiet places that aren't too busy

The best way I find to deal with this is just to embrace my awkwardness, yes I'm awkward, yes I'm geeky, yes I prefer to read a book than go clubbing and these are all the things that make me who I am.

The vast majority of the time if we're feeling awkward the other person either doesn't notice, doesn't care or my favourite of all they're feeling awkward too. Whenever I've been to networking events I look out for the people who look uncomfortable and head for them. Forming a little wow this is awkward duo is very reassuring and usually you're quickly joined by other's and form an awkward gang!

And if someone doesn't like my awkwardness, well they're probably not worth bothering with anyway.

So let's all embrace the awky mo's, laugh about them, find our fellow head-palmers and remember that awkward is beautiful too.

www.katybateson.com