The Essence of Awkward

What what (in the butt) it do, blogosphere? Sir Marcus back here, and ohhhhhhhhhhhh boy are you in for a treat. Y'all don't even know. 

For at least as long as I have been in college, I have harbored an obsession - or should I say a "healthy fascination" - with the awkward. When I say that, I mean that I find awkward people and awkward situations especially humorous and captivating. I suppose I'm not breaking new ground by stating that I find awkward situations funny, but even so, I can't get enough of them - provided they don't involve me. 

Hate when this happens...

So as I was lazily perusing the interwebs today, I came across quite a few websites and articles detailing the various awkward situations that tend to arise everyday, the most germane of which being this one or  perhaps this one.That got me to thinking - there are probably far more awkward situations that don't get quite as much pub, but are no less common. Try as I might, even someone as awesome as I am is susceptible to finding himself engrossed in an awkward encounter from time to time, here are the ones most likely to happen to me or those I know:

1) That situation involving having to speak to a friend who is with a stranger. 

- This happens to me all the time. One advantage of being in college for half a decade is that it gives you plenty of time and opportunity to make new friends that you will stumble into on a regular basis. The disadvantage is that you often have to talk to these people in public. As fate would have it, you're most likely to run into this person when they are with someone that you don't know. For some, this is not an issue. For others, it is pregnant with potential for awkwardness. If you're like me, you're not socially inept enough to want to avoid speaking to people in public at all costs, but generally, the presence of that stranger is enough to throw you off your game a little bit. Consequently, you find yourself bumbling through awkward chit chat that feels forced from the jump. It often begins with you asking some benign question that you want to be a comment on something obvious - not so obvious that it doesn't even merit mentioning, but obvious and relatable enough so as not to alienate the stranger. Of course, rarely does it work out this way, and you most often end up making some completely inane remark, a conversational FAIL the likes of which haven't been seen since that first slave owner let an n-bomb slip the morning that he freed his slaves. "Oh hey, so what are you gals up to? You're writing with pencils? Nice, I had.... a.... pencil once" does not (unless you're intentionally being sarcastic - something that few can convincingly pull off) exactly make you come off as someone who is comfortable hatching conversations with people. Get your improv game up. 

2) That situation where you're the drunkest/highest/clumsiest person at the party. 

- Admittedly, I have no idea what this is like, and more often than not, it's most awkward for the people watching Mr. or Mrs. Drunkenstein, but awkward is awkward. Being a friend of the afflicted party is tough for awhile afterwards because you've often seen them in a different light or compromising positions. These cases lead to any number of unfortunate outcomes, such as:

     

Narcolepsy is a hell of a drug.

     *Dancing the night away at a family party and eventually throwing up all over your best friend. 

     *Waking up in the middle of your living room floor the morning after hosting a party. Your t-shirt and socks are still on, but your pants and underwear are M.I.A.

     *Making one swift, ill-timed dance move (again at a house party that you're hosting) and face-planting in the middle of your kitchen floor. But don't worry, the chipped tooth look is TOTALLY on the social upswing. 

     *Getting blackout drunk for the first time on a class trip to Europe and subsequently thinking that it's high time you took out your innermost frustrations on the door to your room. No, you're right - I definitely thought that if you built a full head of steam, you could take that sumbitch down. I mean, who expects an 8-foot tall, 4-inch thick wooden door to be anything but flimsy? Stupid European architecture...

3) That situation where you are again around strangers and have to pretend getting a call or text so as to avoid either making conversation or looking like a bewildered jackass. 

- We've all been here. I often find myself walking around campus or in a confined space with a stranger where I have absolutely no qualms with faking a call to avoid interaction. The walking one is simpler - you don't really have to speak to anyone but that also makes it trickier because you've realized that you have to turn around and go in the opposite direction and the people around are sure to see you do it. Without explaining to them what you're doing, you're going to look silly. And God forbid you do go outta your way to explain it - now you look both silly and self-important for explaining to a complete stranger something they give less than a damn about. What I do is always stop dead in my tracks, look around me for a few seconds as if the ghost who just called me may be close by, and then go back the way I came, faking exasperation and slight distress and muttering various things that sound like I'm confirming directions. Crisis averted.

The confined spaces one is probably far more common; so common in fact, that the other person is probably quietly upset or relieved that you whipped out the phone before they did. Of course, this is probably the oldest trick in the book, so they're also hating you because you're coming off as a snotty McAsshole who's too good to even stand their company for a small amount of time, no matter how brief.

4) That situation (FOR GUYS) where either the word "period" comes up in conversation, or worse yet - you are physically present to witness the purchase of tampons. 

- Okay, let me preface this section by saying I hate discussing bodily functions on any level with girls. I don't really ever think it's a proper conversational topic unless it absolutely can't be avoided, but those feelings are amplified tenfold when I'm conversing with girls. I can't imagine any guy is completely comfortable talking about periods, so gals, understand where a brother is coming from. It's just inherently awkward.

That being said, I'm willing to acknowledge that it happens. Much like the slaughtering of cows gives us the meat for burgers and their skin as leather for assless chaps, it's a necessary evil that, as long as you don't talk about it so much, we can live with turning a blind eye towards. But mention the word casually around some guys, and you'll see sphincters tighten up faster than Antoine Dodson's will loosen up in jail. 

That being said, sometimes we just don't see it coming. Nothing derails an innocent trip to Wal-Mart faster than spotting a rogue package of tampons in the cart. This is par for the course if you're with your girlfriend or wife, but if you're with a platonic, asexual friend, or worse yet - your mother - then you, poor sap, have been led astray somehow. You'll get temporary reprieve from the ordeal when you inevitably pass out from shock, but upon waking up from that blackout, the dirty truth will still be there, nestled ever-so-comfortably up against your box of Cap'n Crunch - what USED to be your favorite cereal. 

5) That situation where you have a friend that STILL regularly wears Ed Hardy. 

- Self ex-fucking-planatory. Get a new friend before the douchebarrel overfloweth onto you. 

6) That situation in which you're taking a picture with someone WAY cooler/hotter than you and you don't wanna touch them so you commit the cardinal picture sin: The HOVER HAND. 

Sweet glasses though, chief. 

- It's so tough meeting celebrities (or any strangers, for that matter) and being thrust into that surprisingly unnerving situation where you're about to be captured on film with them. You know - perhaps "hope" is a better word for it - that maybe, just maybe, this will raise your social profile and that people who see your facebook profile will see that you have met someone famous or that you don't just hang out with buffarillas. But when picture time comes, you're in a precarious position - do you just cozy on up to them  like you would any other friend, or do you feign contact by putting your arm around them, but not actually touching down on their body so as not to come off as too familiar? This quandary often leads to a mean case of the Hover Hand, which, ironically, often comes off as slightly creepier and more pathetic than if you had just gone for it - something you were trying to avoid, lest you seem creepy and yes, pathetic. 

This is a common affliction of the self-conscious, one I used to suffer from myself. But as I've grown and become more comfortable in my own skin, I've learned to shirk such trepidation and have realized that hey, she agreed to take the picture, so as long as you can subtly break the touch barrier without coming off like a pervert, then you might as well go for it. Don't treat her like a collector's item in its hermetically-sealed packaging -  MAN UP and make that picture worth your while, you pansy!

Anyways, today's offering was fun. I hope y'all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. There are no shortage of potential awkward pitfalls in everyday life, so if you think of some, let a brotha know. 

Until next time, this is Sir Marcus T. Williams signing off...... Y'all stay classy out there.