A Giant Muscleman Talked to Me.
I didn't know WHAT to do! Also, I'm socially weird now I guess?
My understanding of my social skills has been thrown into question lately. I was a shy kid, and that will always be innately who I am, but I learned coping mechanisms as a teenager that have allowed me to be pretty charismatic and engaging socially as an adult. And I’ve kind of seen myself that way since then because it felt stupid to be all “I’m shy nobody likes me!” when I had a lot of really strong social connections and support. It felt somehow disrespectful to people who didn’t have my coping skills to claim to be a shy nerd when that wasn’t really how I was seen anymore.
I’ve been out a handful of times since I moved back to LA full time in January and I’m gonna be honest, it hasn’t gone great. While I’ve enjoyed being around people again, I’ve found talking and socializing to be particularly taxing. The reason? I’m kind of sick of the whole “The last four years have been the worst of my life” narrative, so I’ve tried to talk around the reality of my life, which only really lets me get so deep with people.
My goal in most conversations is to come across as happy and inquisitive, I’m sick of being a bummer and I’m sick of telling the same story over and over again (isolation in the woods, depression, weight gain, etc) so I’ve stuck to a rule about only talking about “good” things and I’m wondering if that’s starting to make me come across as either completely out of touch or just kind of annoying. As someone used to having a certain amount of control over how I am seen, it’s pretty jarring to have no sense of how I’m coming across.
I’ve been to a few big gay parties, like big dancy warehouse things, and had similar experiences. Guys I have no interest in will follow me around all night because I have no skill in telling people I’m not interested (how do you do that in a way that makes them feel good about themselves?) and guys I am interested keep shooting me down. I can’t tell if it’s just luck, if I keep barking up the wrong tree, or if I’m putting off a weird energy that is different than I think it is. Am I being cold without knowing it? Too eager? Am I just acting like a complete fucking weirdo? What is wrong with me?
For the most part, I’m not hitting on guys when I go out. I’m mostly just trying to chat and meet people and have fun. My goal is to be friendly and inclusive, but I keep striking out conversationally. One particularly odd conversation, at a house party, went like this:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Lost Arrow to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.