My socially awkward moments – Part 2

Because my life is full of awkward moments and embarrassing situations, I‘ve decided to write a second part to my article “My socially awkward moments“. Here are another socially awkward stories from my life that are only a proof that I‘m a queen of social awkwardness. Enjoy!

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The following story sounds like something you would see in a movie. I really wish I could say I made it up.  But I swear to God, it really happened. I attract these awkward situations like a magnet…

A few years ago we had a student exchange program in Germany. This embarrassing situation happened during my first dinner with the entire family of my German exchange partner. It was a formal setting with a large group of people. I was wearing a red dress and shoes with high heels.

This is an accurate example of how other girls walk in heels vs. how I walk in heels (I‘m the one on the left if you didn‘t guess it):

While we were making plans for dinner, I leaned back on my heels and, you guessed it, the heel of my boot snapped off. Just one. So I’m terrified, trying to think of what to do. Her mother and sister were sympathetic, but I was so embarrassed…

But it gets better.

I tend to act completely retarded when I eat in public.

We ate a tomato soup for dinner and me being my awkward self, I splashed the whole soup all over my dress.

So here I am, walking around with one of the heels of my boots gone, tomato soup all over the front of my dress… I’m done. I want to leave.

Oh, but it gets better.

As I say goodbye to the family, I go to wave, and a hard metal bracelet I had on, FLIES OFF my wrist, and just misses hitting her mom in the head. Luckily, her whole family has a decent sense of humor. Her dad said something like: “We better get out of here before her clothes fall off!”

I was absolutely mortified. I got in my room and cried for twenty minutes.

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Something I absolutely hate and I‘m sure that a lot of you had to deal with this as well: speaking to someone you don‘t know on the phone.

So… say I have to call a bank for some reason. After an hour of putting it off and procrastinating, I finally dial their number. Then the person at a bank answers the phone and they‘re like: “Yes, of course I can help you! I‘m just gonna need to ask you a few questions first.” Then this person bombards me with hundreds of specific questions! And I‘m just sitting on the other line like: “Eh, hmmm, eeehh”. I get really flustered and I can‘t speak to them like I‘m a normal human being…

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Another example of my exceptional social skills is that I fail at ordering food in restaurants. First of all I spend at least 30 minutes deciding exactly what I want before I speak to anybody. But when I go to order and they say what I want isn‘t available, or if they start asking if I want extras or if I want my food in a certain way… Well you know what, at this point you might as well just bring me a DAMN COCONUT because I‘ve lost every thought that was in my brain!

So I usually just end up saying yes and getting whatever they give me. I‘m sure one day I will end up with a coconut…

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I‘m an expert in dropping things. I literally drop things for no reason! I will be walking along, perfectly fine, and then all of a sudden, my brain will just cut out and I will drop whatever I‘m holding.

Usually it isn‘t that much of a problem, but sometimes it can be a real limitation of my life.

For example, my mom asks me to carry some stuff she just bought from her car. I‘ll pick up a glass bottle and guess what, I‘ll drop it. I‘m carrying a basket full of laundry upstairs and in the middle of the stairs, I‘ll drop it. Or someone tells me: “Pass the salt”. And I drop it. A friend asks me: “Hold my bag for a second”  and I drop it on the floor. It‘s not easy keeping friends when you‘re like this…

Afterwords I‘m like: “Oh god, I‘m so sorry, I didn‘t mean to!”

Seriously, never let me hold anything of yours that you wouldn‘t want if got broken or dropped in a puddle…

But the worst thing is when this happens in public. Like in the following case: I was having lunch in a school cafeteria and I had to walk through the entire room to return back my plate. It was nothing unusual, I used to do this every single day. But on that particular day, my level of social awkwardness was especially high. As I was walking, I felt extremely awkward that people were watching me. And when people are looking at me, my body stops listening to me. Suddenly, I dropped all that I was carrying in my hands on the floor! My plates with rest of food on them, my cup, my bag… Everything was laying broken on the floor. And this happened in front of 100+ people and literally all of my teachers saw it. After a few moments of dead silence, the entire cafeteria burst out laughing.

All students and classmates were laughing like it was the funniest thing they have ever seen.

Some of my teachers were giggling, but some of them had this stare on their faces that screamed: “I‘ll kill you! What have you done?!”

In that moment I didn‘t know what to do. I‘ve tried to collect the broken pieces of everything, but it just wasn‘t working. Then some people came and started to clean up the mess I‘ve made. I could still hear people laughing. In that moment I felt like the most awkward person on the planet.

After this incident my fame in school has risen to incredible heights. I‘ve managed to make my already horrible reputation in school even worse.

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I was in a class and we had a new teacher. The teacher asked us to introduce ourselves and say what we like to do. Everyone was saying the typical boring shit like go to clubs, dance, go out to bars, hang out with friends, sports, blah… Then I said something like this:

Me: “I like to study theories that catch my eye or fascinate me, like quantum physics, for example. I‘m especially intrigued with the Many-Worlds Interpretation. I‘m also interested in psychology, biology, astronomy and history. I would go on Wikipedia and start reading, but then I see something I am curious about and end up hopping from page to page for like three hours.” Then I realized that what I just said made me look like the biggest nerd on the planet. So in attempt to make myself look more normal, I added: “And I like traveling, listening to music, reading, writing and painting. ” (But I knew that it was too late, because everyone looked at me like I was a space alien).

The teacher: You have now established that you are the smartest person in the room.

*awkward laughter from the entire classroom*

Me: *mental face palm*

(Not really sure whether to take that as a compliment…?) But seriously, why couldn‘t I just say something normal? I told them the truth and sounded like a nerd…

So since then, I officially became the queen of school nerds.

Which is not the best position to be in, because everyone hates nerds.

Unless we were writing a test. Then suddenly everyone starts acting like they‘re my best friend.

Everyone wants to sit next to me, so they can copy my answers. Literally, before every exam our entire class had a fight who will get the privilege to sit next to me.

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I give the WORST direction advice ever. If you ever get lost and need someone to tell you how you get to a specific place, the last person you want to ask is me. I hate it when someone stops me on the street and asks me where do they find this and that street. Like why would you do that to me? I wasn‘t ready for you to ask me this question. Why would you expect me to know where that is? DO I LOOK INTELLIGENT?! So I usually just end up pointing in a random direction and saying: “go this way”, just so they leave me alone. I don‘t know how many times I did this, but I apologize to all people I caused serious trouble because of my awkwardness. I‘m sorry…

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What is the thing I am especially bad at? Dating. I mean it doesn‘t happen very often because, OBVIOUSLY, who would ask ME on a date? But if it happens, I make sure that I make a complete fool of myself. Usually I don‘t make it past the first date, because I embarrass myself so efficiently, that these people never want to see me again. Like with that one guy I talked about in the first part of this series on which I spilled my drink and then ran away. It‘s like when I‘m on a date, I lose all my intelligence, all my charm and all there is left is my awkwardness.

Another embarrassing date happened when I was at a summer camp. Don‘t get me wrong, I enjoyed the camp, I had a time of my life. But there was too much social interaction. 24 hours all days a week was incredibly energy draining for me. After two weeks of spending zero time alone, the only thing I craved was some alone time with my favorite book. One day I was in especially bad mood when one guy asked me out. I was soo low on energy and soo annoyed, that the last thing I wanted is to go somewhere with this guy. I knew that acting like a normal person is not going to be possible tonight. So I said “no” many times, but this guy seemed to really like me and he just didn‘t want to go away! So I was forced to agree.

But this time I didn‘t get nervous and I didn‘t try to impress him. I decided to do a complete opposite. I acted like a bitch on purpose. I know, it doesn‘t sound like me, I‘m usually very nice to people and I‘m never mean to anyone.

But this time, all I wanted was to be left alone. So I did everything I could that made me look like horrible person. I didn‘t talk to him very much and when I did, I made sure that I say something rude or offensive. I played the role of a cold hearted self centered narcissist very well and I think that at the end of the evening, this guy was so freaked out, that he never spoke to me again.

Well, now I feel bad for that poor guy that I treated so badly for my own selfish reasons…

I hope he didn‘t take it personally. I can go very far from who I truly am if I don‘t get my alone time and if you overstimulate me with too much social interaction. So which lesson did you get from this story? Never force an introvert to socially interact with you if they are low on energy and need some time to recharge. Never underestimate the things we can do when you force us to go out!

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I made a complete fool out of myself when I was getting my haircut a few years ago. Hair salons make me nervous as there are people everywhere and there are mirrors everywhere. The lighting in that salon made my face look really terrible and I just felt like I looked a mess compared to the hair stylists. 

When I get nervous and socially anxious I become really inarticulate and have a stutter. I didn’t have much to say to the girl who was cutting my hair and there were some points when I literally sounded retarded. 

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Why do these things always happen to me?!!

My socially awkward moments

We all experience socially awkward situations. We all have had moments where we wish the floor would swallow us up. It’s perfectly normal from time to time. But when I look back at my life, my life is a series of awkward moments. I’ve had so many of these awkward situations that I can call myself the master of social awkwardness.

Today I’m going to share some of my most embarrassing moments and stories with you. All of these situations come from my past and early teenage years when I used to be the walking and talking embodiment of social awkwardness itself. I should get an award considering with how many socially awkward situations I had to deal with during my relatively short lifetime.

I’m not that socially awkward anymore. As I’m getting more comfortable with myself, it’s becoming easier for me to act like a proper human being. The fact that I can now laugh at my failures and embarrassing moments is a sign of recovery. I can assure you it wasn’t funny at all when I was experiencing them. In the middle of these situations I felt like the worst person on the planet that doesn’t deserve to be here. But now when I look back at all of my embarrassing moments, I find them quite amusing. Sure, I acted like a complete fool but at least I have now interesting stories to tell people. As horrible as it feels when these things are happening, laughing at the situation later is inevitable!

I warn you, this post is going to be very awkward. I have taken social awkwardness to a whole new level. If at the end of the article you think that I’m absolutely crazy and you don’t want to have anything to do with me, it’s perfectly understandable.

I use gifs and images to better illustrate the awkwardness of each situation. Because:

Here is a list of socially awkward moments I used to experience on a daily basis (I do some of them until this day, therefore the present tense):

• Whenever I see someone I know in public, I avoid him or her like the plague. I’m like a ninja. I will do things that no one else will do. I can hide from any walker in the blink of an eye.

• I would rather volunteer for the Hunger Games than volunteer to speak in class.
• Elevator rides with strangers are my personal version of hell.

• I say “hi” to someone. It usually comes out as a whisper.
• I tend to avoid eye contact with people.

• I am constantly planning what I am going to say before speaking, but it never comes out the way I plan.

• When I am with a friend and they’re talking to someone I don’t know, I just stand there behind them saying nothing.

• I am extremely awkward in my greetings with people and my goodbyes.

• I say goodbye to a person. Then we start walking the same way.
• Someone calls me the wrong name. I don’t bother to correct them.
• When I don’t feel like hanging out with someone I’m able to do anything to escape socializing. Maybe even this:

• My dance moves result in public humiliation.

• I have nightmares about having to maintain conversation with a hairstylist. 

• My friend introduces me to someone and then immediately leaves to go to the bathroom. So much awkward staring, so much fake texting.

• No matter where I go or whom I’m with, I always find a way to embarrass myself.
• Eating in public usually ends like a total disaster for me.

• When a stranger stares at me I have no idea what to do.

• My voice may crack or go high at random moments. This makes me feel even more socially awkward than ever. It is not a nice thing to happen.

• Small talk is a big problem for me. There are only two options for me: Stand there awkwardly in silence or say something completely inappropriate in hope of starting a conversation:

• Attempting to flirt is like speaking a foreign language to me.

• I don’t respond well to compliments and usually start jumbling words together and make no sense.
• In casual situations involving small talk, I tend to subconsciously have a nervous tic –like biting my nails or playing with my hair.
• When invited to a party or any other social gathering I’d rather just chill at home  than risk embarrassing myself in the outside world.

• Sometimes I accidentally hold hands with a stranger in public transport.

• When my casual acquaintances complain that I hardly talk, my best friends laugh in their faces, and say: She never shuts up.
• Everyone knows the difference between my real laugh and my awkward laugh and I never know which will make an appearance.

• When I am trying to make a joke but then forgetting the punch line halfway through.

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These were just random socially awkward moments I deal with regularly. Now here is a collection of some majorly awkward stories that actually happened to me. I hope I won’t get in trouble for posting them publicly on the internet. The reason I’m doing this is because I want to encourage other people that might think they are socially awkward, but in comparison to me, they’re pretty normal. And you can probably laugh at my stupid failures. Seriously, if you don’t think I’m weird already, this is going to convince you:

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One day I was walking on a street and spotted a person in a distance that I know but I wanted to avoid her. I was trying so hard not to be noticed that I suddenly lost all my motor skills. I tripped and fell down epicly on the floor. Not only the person I tried to avoid noticed me but the entire street saw it.  It looked kind of similar to this:

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I hate parties. I’ve been to a party only a few times in my life and regretted it later every single time. I remember very well what was it like for the first time. To begin with I didn’t wanted to attend the party at all. It was a regular Friday night after a long week of school and I just wanted to have a nice evening by myself lying curled up in bed with my laptop as usual. It could have been such a great night… But no, my friend was trying to convince me to attend this party for days. I said “no” maybe hundred times, but on the 101th time I’ve heard a small voice in my head saying: “What if it’s actually fun? You won’t know unless you try.” And then I agreed to come. The party felt like hell to me. So many people everywhere, strangers, uncomfortable small talk, no interesting conversations, no fascinating people… Soo energy draining for me. There were drunk people everywhere, awful music was playing too loudly, I couldn’t breathe in that smoke. I seriously don’t understand how can someone enjoy it. My friends weren’t even noticing me. I was just standing by myself in a corner wishing a black hole would swallow me up.

So the evening ended up being a total disaster. I felt so awkward standing there in the corner just observing and I didn’t know what to do.

‘So what did I do? I ran away. Exactly like you would see it in a movie. I ran all the way home. That’s probably the best thing I could do for my well being anyway. But I could have made it less awkward if I actually told someone. Because my friends spent the rest of the night looking for me. They were so afraid, they thought someone kidnapped me or something horrible must have happened to me. They almost called the police. When they saw me the next day, they almost killed me. Thankfully I was not invited to any party since then :D.

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I’m especially awkward in buses or any kind of public transport. One of my many awkward moments happened one day when I was casually sitting on a bus going to school. Suddenly an old lady came and she stood right next to me. Any normal person with a brain would say: “Please take my seat!”. But what did I do?! Instead of letting her take my seat like social norms dictate, I was too scared to open my mouth and say something! So I was just sitting there awkwardly trying to act like I didn’t notice her. I’m not a mean person, I would let her take my seat, but it was my extreme level of social awkwardness that stopped me from acting like a normal human being. It got even more awkward after some time. The old lady was showing me with her gestures that she would like to sit. Even an idiot would get it. After a few minutes of total awkwardness I stood up and ran away from the bus a few bus stops earlier I would normally, just because I couldn’t take the awkwardness of that situation anymore. Then I came late for school because I had to walk there all the way… And I bet that the old lady must have lost her faith in humanity and young people in general. Well done…

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Picture this: Your first really important exam, in a dead silent room with twenty+ people all waiting for the same thing you are: to get called up for the greatest challenge of your life. I had been waiting for like a half an hour and I was starting to get very nervous. Finally, they called my name. I got up, adjusting my professional clothing. I try to be all cool, calm and collected, because well… Anyways, ALL OF A SUDDEN: Everything slips out of my hands like:

All of my important papers, my phone and my wallet hit the floor with literally the loudest crash I have ever heard. So I try to recover myself with this stupid blush on my face and slowly bent over, scraping up my things from the floor as everyone decides to start giggling, even the director of school who is now covering his face with my application. In my head I was just like:

But I haven’t failed the exam! 😀 And this story became quite popular among our teachers. Looks like I made them laugh in the middle of such a boring day. I became famous in my school for my special power to drop things…

I came home and I felt like I want to end my life… Why do these things always happen to me?!!

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Okay this one is really weird… I have a very bad habit. I talk to myself. Not at all the times of course. That would look like I’m totally crazy. Usually I do it when I’m home alone and nobody can see me. I don’t know why am I doing it. Probably because my inner life is so rich and so much interesting stuff is going on inside my head that I feel the need to express it. And when I have no one to talk to, I just argue with myself. Out loud. I know it’s creepy and you’re probably thinking right now that I should get help. Well, probably I should because it’s getting out of hand. The other day I was shopping at a grocery store. You know, I’m just walking around looking for some things and I’m having a very interesting conversation with myself inside my head. In that moment I completely forgot that I’m at a public place and there are people around me. I suddenly said what I was thinking out loud! It was an inside joke and I laughed at myself afterwards! But then I came back to reality and realized what happened. Every single person was staring at me like I’m completely crazy. Like this:

I’m thinking to myself: “There’s no way back. They’ve seen it. I’m screwed.” Probably the worst few seconds in my life. In that moment I wished the universe ended. After a few seconds I turned around and walked away. In hope that I will never see these people again. I can only hope…

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The following story is one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. This situation was so awkward that it gives me shivers when I think about it… And I’m not kidding you, this really happened: So the thing is my parents thought I was gay. Like SERIOUSLY! I have nothing against gay people at all. But it was the strangest thing ever to hear my parents tell me that it’s OK when I admit to them that I’m gay. (And I’m not!) I was just sitting there staring at them thinking to myself: “WHAT THE HELL?!! How did you even come up with that?!!! What makes me look like a gay person?!!”. Well, according to my mom it was the only logical explanation. She thought so because I have never dated anyone and I’m not obsessing over boy bands or actors like other typical teenage girls do, so there must be something different about me. And so she came to the conclusion that I’m gay. She must have been thinking about it for quite some time because otherwise she wouldn’t have planned such a serious conversation. I felt so awkward during that conversation like never before. I had to explain to my parents why I never dated anyone and it’s not easy to explain it to them especially when it’s so hard for me to be open to them. After that conversation, I wasn’t able to look my parents in the eyes for days… Soo awkward.

When I saw this socially awkward penguin meme I was very surprised that someone may have experienced a similar thing:

Like I’ve already said earlier, I’m the human embodiment of socially awkward penguin. Maybe after all it’s not that weird that your parents assume you’re gay when you aren’t… Or is it? Please tell me I’m not the only one.

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And here’s one case I dealt with in the absolute wrongest way humanly possible: last year I was sitting at a bar and talking with a complete stranger sitting next to me for about 10 seconds. I accidentally spilled my drink all over him. And what did I do then? I backed away slowly without saying a word! I backed up all the way to the door and left. I couldn’t even get out an apology! Probably not the best way to deal with that one… Poor guy.

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So, you’ve seen some of my most embarrassing moments… Now you’re probably thinking I’m the most awkward person on the planet. And maybe you’re right… If someone ever comes up with a TV show about a socially awkward girl, I should be playing the leading role. No one can beat me in this.

My INFJ story

Hi lovely people!

It’s time for me to introduce myself. Maybe you’ve been wandering who is behind this blog. I’m going to tell you a little more about me (beware, my definition of “a little” = a novel.) So who am I?

My name is Paulina and I’m probably the most stereotypical INFJ in existence. Someone could seriously use me as a textbook example. I embody all typical INFJ traits to the highest degree. I can relate to every INFJ description I have found 100%. When I first discovered that I am an INFJ, it was almost life saving for me. I was very surprised to find the description alarmingly accurate, describing me pretty much to the point where I could think of nothing I could add to make it any more complete. For the first time in my life I felt like someone understands me.

I would like to start from the childhood. Since a very young age I knew I was different. I enjoyed solitude and I loved to play just by myself. In kindergarten I was that weird kid that was observing everyone and everything in the corner. I especially loved to paint and create stuff so you could always find me with crayons in my hands. I remember that my teachers were very concerned about me. They told my parents they should send me to a childhood psychiatrist to find out if I’m sane and not mentally ill. The doctor didn’t identify me with any mental illness and just assumed that I am very shy and introverted, but maybe it gets better as I grow up. I remember that everyone called me “Sleeping beauty” as a child.I was always typed as the girl who existed in “her own little world”. I remember feeling guilty for being weird. I hated the fact that I was different and I could’t fit in no matter how hard I tried. I avoided trouble and followed the rules to an anal degree. I believe my nickname was “saint girl” when I was younger.

Besides my obvious preference for introversion, I have always been an “old soul”. When I was 4 years old, I felt very strange in my little tiny body. I felt so much wiser and older than what I looked like. I always wanted to figure out how the universe works. The first sentence I spoke when I learned how to talk was: “What does it mean?”. 😀 I always search for meaning behind things.

One particular childhood memory stands out for me: I remember looking at my own reflection in the mirror and staring deeply into my own eyes. I felt like I could see the entire universe reflected in my eyes. I felt like I’m a part of something much greater than myself. I knew I was the creator myself, not just a waste of space in a meaningless universe. These kind of things happened to me often as a child and continue to happen now in my adulthood.

My childhood was full of feeling misunderstood, being bullied and feeling like an alien in this world. Occasionally there were good times, but mostly is ranged from mediocre to miserable, intermixed with complete hell. No one could understand me but I felt like I understand everyone. I could easily read people and their motives, intentions and feelings. It bothered me even more when I saw that no one can tell how I feel. It made me feel even more otherwordly. In my case, I think the characteristics of being an INFJ coupled with not so supportive parents caused the loneliness & isolation I experienced as a child.

My teenage years = Very few friends, a non existent social life. As a teenager I enjoyed reading. Everywhere I went I had to take a book with me. I also enjoy writing. I express myself so much better in writing than in verbal communication. I’ve spend the majority of my teenage years on the internet. I’ve created blogs and shared my ideas with other people. For the first time in my life I felt like someone understands me. I love internet so much because it contains a lot of information. I adore learning new things. When I find a subject I’m passionate about I spend hours and hours researching on the internet until I’m an expert in it.

I have to admit that since I discovered my personality type, my life is getting better and better. It’s all about self acceptance. I used to hate myself as a child and I used to think that something was wrong with me. But my self hate decreased a lot when I found out that I’m a perfectly healthy INFJ. I’m not a flawed and defected human being, I’m just very rare and original. I began to value myself and accept myself more. And as I started doing so, I noticed that other people accept me more as well. I was even able to find friends that appreciate me for who I am.

I’m also very spiritual. Not religious but spiritual. I’m deeply interested in all things metaphysical. I guess I was already born this way and when I read spiritual books, it feels like I’m remembering something I have always known very deeply.

Another thing that I love is art. I love to create mandalas and symbolic paintings.  When engrossed in creative flow, I experience myself in perfect synchrony with the universe. I’m very creative and artistic. When engrossed in a creative stint, I may paint and write for hours, occasionally even days, without rest.

Right now I’m about to attend collage and study psychology. My dream is to counsel people and help them find happiness. I love giving people advice and solving people-related problems. I feel that in order to solve the myriad humanitarian crises facing the world, we must first gain a better foothold on the fundamentals of human nature and human behavior. We need to better understand ourselves—our motives, behaviors, and personality. My greatest joy is in helping people and knowing that I’m making this world a brighter place.

Words I would choose to describe myself:

deep, complex, loving, gentle, caring, friendly, intuitive, dreamer, visionary, idealist, mystic, philosopher, supportive, understanding, helpful, authentic, individualistic, original, quiet,  spiritual, wise, compassionate, otherwordly, artistic, creative, passionate, determined, commited

My experience with hating my body

For a long time up until recently, I had hated my body.

While most people hate their body for its certain features, their body frame, or a disdain of their natural body type, my hatred of my body did not stem from any of that. I have always had no problem with my natural appearance, be it my body type, my body frame , my height, nor my facial features.

Rather, my hatred of my body stemmed from my inferiority of my body weight.

I had always felt that I was heavier than I ought to be. While I had never been overweight nor truly “fat” even, I had always wished that I could be lighter. I had always believed that regardless of how I looked, how many people praised me about my appearance, or how heavy (or light) I was, I would be much more attractive if I was slimmer—much slimmer.

A big part of this self-body-hate probably started when I was in primary school.

I recall sitting beside this girl in class who would regularly dissect and disparage her body parts and call herself fat, even though she was so skinny—easily one of the skinniest girls I knew.

At that time, I didn’t understand why she would repeatedly put down her looks like that. Whenever she called herself fat, I would look at myself and wonder why she would think that she is fat, for I weigh more than her.

While I did not hate my body nor think that I was fat in any way then, hearing her constant complaints planted the first seeds of doubt about my body’s integrity. It made me wonder if I was perhaps missing something about my body and that it was not as “okay” or perfect as I thought it was.

These incidents made me subconsciously conclude that being skinny is equivalent to beauty and that to be regarded as beautiful by others, I had to be stick skinny.

Subsequently, I became exposed to projected images of beauty in the mass media on a regular basis. From leggy models, to sharp facial contours, to stick-thin celebrities, these images were repeatedly projected as standards of beauty which all girls should strive for.

Of course, this wasn’t a factor of my concern back then. My only obsession was to be as thin as possible, then evaluate the results later.

To be skinny—that was deemed as a good thing. To not be stick skinny was deemed as being not ”attractive”, not “beautiful”, or even—not deserving of love.

Because I did not conform to the sticky skinny image of beauty, I harbored a deep hatred for my body. I constantly wished that I was thin, thinner than I was, or better yet, thinnest among everyone I knew.

My weight loss journey would be fraught with difficulties for my childhood was laced with emotional eating issues. I constantly ate to feed my emotions, resulting in weight gain over time despite my healthy eating efforts and constant exercising.

Because of my emotional eating issues, weight was frequently an area of contest within myself. I would constantly set goals to lose weight, only to fail one way or another. This would make me hate myself even further, for not being able to achieve my goal.

For the record, my real problem was not in losing the weight. My problem was with sustaining my weight losses, partly due to my emotional eating issues. Regardless of how much weight I would lose during each weight loss endeavor, I would regain my “excess” weight after a while, through one way or other. From gradual regains over the span of months to immediate weight regains in a matter of days, I would always regain my lost weight.

It was almost as if my excess weight had a mind of its own. No matter how many times I lost it, it would find its way to pile itself back onto my body. It was as if I couldn’t run away from it, no matter how hard I tried.

Eventually, I learned to love my body. I just shared with you my own experience. I am sure I am not alone in this and many girls experienced the same thing. So I am here to tell you that it is  possible to love your body. I am going to share with you the process on loving your body in the next post:)

My experience with social anxiety

In the previous article I was talking about social awkwardness from its fun side. This time I’m going to take a more serious approach to this topic because it really isn’t very funny for a person that is suffering from social anxiety.

I’m going to share with you my own experience:

Most people get anxious about social situations from time to time. But with me, anxiety took control and kept me from living.

I’ve felt afraid of people from the time I was a kid, and this continued to get worse as I got older. I had bucked teeth and a speech problem. I felt very different from other kids. My peers physically and verbally attacked me for years. I felt ashamed and humiliated because I was unable to defend myself, so I didn’t tell anybody what was happening to me. I felt safe nowhere and I trusted no one. I became afraid to go outside. I often pretended to be sick so I wouldn’t have to face the kids at school. I avoided situations that I thought might cause me anxiety. Because I was isolated, I didn’t know what normal was.

I sat in class frozen, afraid to attract attention. I saw people participating in social activities I found impossible and I couldn’t understand where they found the courage, so I thought I was a weak willed coward. I was crippled by feelings of dread that jabbed at me out of nowhere. I was afraid I’d melt if I left my emotions be seen by other people.

I dissociated from my feelings and memories to cope with the fear and anger buried deep inside. I insulated myself by isolating in my room and rocking to music for hours on end. I found this comforting, but I couldn’t stop and it consumed my time. I couldn’t get my homework done and my character growth was stunted.

I came to the point where I thought that living my life, every day worrying about what others thought of me and every day feeling humiliated and embarrassed for no good reason, and not doing what I wanted to do because of this embarrassment, was not a good way to live.

So I decided that I want to change it. I started to read a lot of books on self help, self acceptance and self love. I discovered that the main reason why I hated to socialize was because my lack of confidence. I believed that there must be something wrong with me. I hated myself and believed I was a completely worthless human being.

It took a few years but thing started to change. I made friends for the first time in my life. What we all had in common was our social awkwardness. For the first time in my life I had a feeling like someone can understand me. We all felt uncomfortable making small talk, doing group projects, meeting new people. We all loved to read, walk in nature, write and we also enjoyed talking to each other about deep interesting topics. It made me feel so much better when I found out I’m not alone in this and it definitely helped me to recover from social anxiety.

Over the years of practice, I am now much better at handling social situations before. Surely, I’m not a social butterfly. I’m still introverted and I prefer to have a few close friends, my ideal Saturday evening is spending time alone reading a book, writing or watching my favorite TV show. But I no longer feel so stressed during conversations, I actually enjoy meeting new people, I can talk to people more easily and effortlessly and people no longer make fun of me or think I am a weirdo.

For me, the cure for social anxiety was self acceptance. Once I stopped believing in my worthlessness, things started to change. I gained self confidence and I was no longer so afraid of what other people thought of me. I started to express my opinions, I started to talk to people and I was surprised when other people finally began treating me as a normal and valuable person.

I want everyone struggling with social anxiety, social awkwardness and extreme shyness to know that it is perfectly curable. If I did it, you can do it too. Remember, you are not alone!!!

Lots of love to you all:)

Social awkwardness

Today I’m going to talk to you about a topic I myself have mastered. It’s social awkwardness.

Signs that you are socially awkward:

• Your idea of an epic Saturday night is a night inside surfing the internet or reading.
• You go to great lengths to avoid answering the house phone. This includes bothering someone in the shower.
• When you enter a room full of people you’re not so familiar with, you constantly ask the earth (in your mind, of course) to open up and swallow you
• You tell jokes you think are absolutely hilarious, but no one laughs.
• You quickly change the subject when someone asks you ‘What did you do this weekend?’
• You avoid eye contact.
• You get excited/ feel proud of yourself when you have a natural conversation with a stranger.
• Your phone has lost it’s purpose.
• You plan conversations in your head and never say them in real life.
• You ask your parents for a new phone and they say, ‘Why? Who’re you going to call?’
• You don’t spend a lot of time on Facebook because you’re worried a doomed message will pop up saying ‘Hi!’
• You see someone you know on the bus and try and hide around the corner.
• Someone says hi to you and rather than saying hi back, you let out a nervous squeak and fast walk away.
• When your friend talks to someone you don’t know, you stand still and don’t utter a word, reassuring yourself that it’ll all be over soon.
• People tell you interesting  and crazy stories of their own life, you tell them interesting and crazy stories from a book you read

I love the socially awkward penguin meme. I find it hilarious maybe because I can relate to every single one. Oh god help me!

I’m too hard on myself

I have noticed that most of the time I behave very unlovingly towards myself. I am too harsh on myself. I do not appreciate my successes and I put myself down for everything that I think has gone wrong. I have the tendency to only pay attention to what I consider my flaws than my strengths.

I place extremely high standards on myself. I expect myself to be above it all. I feel like I should have already mastered everything. Whenever I feel negative emotion I start to think that something must have gone terribly wrong. I resist negative emotion and think it has no positive meaning. Therefore the negative emotion sticks around and I feel like crap constantly.

I especially noticed this tendency of mine while I’m studying. I usually  don’t enjoy it and I force myself to study. I tell myself I should be studying. But at the same time I’m avoiding to study at all costs. That means I wake up and tell myself I’m going to start studying. But after a few minutes I get bored and I find myself on the internet. I know I shouldn’t be doing this and I feel guilty for it but I still continue with distracting myself. After what is usually a few hours I go back to studying. Then I get bored and again I’m on the internet. I don’t enjoy it as much as I would because I constantly feel like I am betraying myself and I am wasting my life. At the end of the day I feel totally horrible about myself. I know I have done nothing productive all day and I am ruining my life.

But it’s not always so. Sometimes I study hard (usually short before the exam). The problem is that I am a horrible perfectionist. I never think I have done enough. I always tell myself I could do better. That’s why I usually get best grades and still I am not satisfied. It’s like I can’t appreciate myself. I definitely should stop with this kind of behavior. Especially when my ultimate goal is to love myself.

From this moment on I promise to myself that I will never be too hard on myself again.

I promise that I will study effectively and I won’t be using any distractions. I will set myself a time that I will study and after It’s over I am going to allow myself to do anything that I want. And I won’t have to feel guilty about myself while having fun. That’s going to increase my productivity and I’m going to feel good about myself.

I also promise to myself that I will appreciate each one of my achievements. I will stop paying attention to all my “failures” and I will look at my successes. Every time I successfully learn something I will be proud of myself. After every single passed exam I am going to reward myself. I will do something extremely self loving.

At the end of each day I will write into my diary all the thing that I am proud I did. I will write everything that I appreciate about myself and my day.

My fandom obsession

The last post was about fandoms. In this one I would like to share with you how my fandom is affecting my life.

I’m not new to fandoms or fangirling. I always got very excited about things that I liked. Even as a child I got obsessed with singers, actors, bands, TV shows or whatever. I was and still am a fan of many things.

But it was cca 3 years ago when I found out what being a hard core fan is like. I started watching a TV show and I really liked it. Then they introduced a new couple on the show. I fell in love with this couple immediately. I don’t know if you are familiar with the term “shipping”. If not, it means that you like the idea of two characters being in a romantic relationship. It doesn’t necessarily have to be sexual (but come on, who are we kidding:). I totally started to ship them. They became my OTP (One True Pairing – the ship you like the most).

This is all ok. There is nothing wrong when a person likes a relationship of two fictional characters, right? I think what made my obsession much much bigger is joining the internet fandom. The day I discovered tumblr was the day my social life died. I found so many amazing blogs dedicated to my OTP. I started chatting with the owners of these blogs. We were exchanging pictures, videos and gifs. Every day I spent hours and hours on tumblr, reblogging hundreds of gifs.

Then I found out about fan forums. Those are places where people who share a mutual obsession discuss that thing. I loved it because all these people completely understood how I was feeling. We were discussing every single detail of what was going on on our favorite show, we were analyzing every sentence, every scene, everything… We were sharing our opinions, stories and fan art. There was so much going on that I devoted all my free time to this site. I started to do worse at school because I just couldn’t focus on learning. I’d rather spent my time chatting with people on the forums. I also completely sacrificed my social life to it. Who needs real life friends when all the cool people are online?

The day I discovered the site fanfiction.net was the day when I started to abandon all my basic needs. Fan fictions are worse than drugs. You become completely addicted to them. Especially when you find writers that are such geniuses. Some of these stories are better than any book I have ever read in my life. When I found a good fanfic with 50 or more chapters, I read all the chapters in one day. And they were really long. It is like reading a thick book in just one day. The result of this was that I stopped getting sleep. I was so obsessed with what happens in the next chapter that I didn’t care about the fact that I will be tired as a zombie the next day at school.

And this madness went on for months. Throughout the 3 years I had a few breaks with my hard core shipping. Usually I stopped being so obsessed when there were things going on in the show that I didn’t like that much. So I somehow stopped abandoning my basic needs and I started studying like a responsible student. But after some time I always returned to the fandom. It happened to me just recently. I wasn’t following the show for a few months. But a few weeks ago I have watched the episodes I haven’t seen so far. And it was probably the biggest mistake of my life. My obsession returned. I think it is even bigger than ever before. I blame the show for my giant obsession because the things that our fandom was only dreaming about for years became true.

On the day when the newest episode came out I have done NOTHING productive. I watched the episode 3 times in a row, I went on forum and spent 4 hours reading all the amazing posts and chatting with other fans, then I went on tumblr and spent another 3 hours liking and reblogging gifs and pictures. I seriously caught myself staring at some gifs for hours and I’m not kidding you. Then I rewatched my favorite scene from the episode on youtube countless times and spammed the site with comments. And of course I had to watch all other fan videos available. At the end of the day I read some fanfiction that people wrote as the continuation of the epic episode. And when the day was over I realized: I need help. This is not healthy. I literally have done nothing productive all day.

I wish it was just one day. But I found myself repeating these actions 3 days in a row. I know I’m not alone in this. In our fandom it’s a common thing. We all went crazy because of what was happening on the show. We all started abandoning all of our basic needs because of how many times we had to rewatch certain scenes. And it’s not just a thing that happens to teenagers. I know people who are over 30 years old with kids and jobs and they act just like crazy teenage fangirls.

And how do I feel about myself now? I think this gif pretty much sums it up:

Fandoms of the internet

One thing that I’m really obsessed at the moment is fan culture and specifically fandoms of the internet. If you don’t know what a fandom is, basically it’s a community of fans revolving around a TV show, a movie, a book or something similar to that. Generally fandoms tend to involve people ages 13-21 on average, but anyone could potentially be a part of a fandom if they enjoy something enough.What I would like to talk about today is that you can like something SO MUCH that it actually destroys your life. Let me explain:

If you think you can just waltz into a fandom, that is not how this works. One does not simply join a fandom. It just happens to you. And most of the time, it’s when you least expect it.

Firstly, the person discovers and enjoys the thing. Then the person goes to the internet and has fun finding out about it and people who feel the same way. Person then suddenly becomes aware of that overwhelming perfection and it becomes the main reason for being alive.

Next thing a person does is surfing the internet for places where you can talk with other people in the fandom (forums), you’re making fan art, you’re reblogging hundreds and hundreds of gifs on tumblr, you may even write some fanfiction. And there is no going back. Once you start having these intense emotions or “feels” for something, its like your soul would have this massive void if you would ever leave the fandom.

It’s kinda like a drug. While fandoms generally don’t cause you any physical harm like real drugs will, they will have an enormous effect on your social life. Do not watch a show or a movie for which you have intense feels around your non fandom friends. If you try to enjoy you’re favorite thing and start feeling your feels around the people who just don’t get it, they will think you’re insane.

But what is it that turns a person that just likes something into this emotional wreck? It’s the internet! So you watched something that made you feel some feelings. If you didn’t go to the internet and see 10 000 other people feeling the same feelings, it’s a “feelingsplosion”. It’s basically like a group soap opera with ups and downs and fight and drama that at the end of the day is all centered around a mutual obsession over something.

But the separation between this hard core internet fandom and just a casual real life fan is what amazes me. A casual fan will pretty much just enjoy the thing whilst the internet fan is rocking backwards and forwards in the corner because of all the feelings.

Basically, fandoms are like drugs. You just need that little bit to get you hooked and than a tiny bit more here and there when BAM, suddenly your life is a train wrack. There should seriously be a fandom rehab.

And for anyone who is reading this who doesn’t consider himself a part of fandom like this, you have to understand something: You’re fandom friends really care about this stuff. They actually have emersed themselves so deeply into this world and have invested so many emotions into the characters that they might actually be googling rituals that they can do in order to try to send themseves into that fictional universe and actually live there. Sadly there is no way to do something like that and what’s worse, eventually, you’re going to hit something like a brick wall in your fandom. What I mean by this is you’re watching your favorite TV show and you watch all available episodes and then you find out there is going to be like 6 months or a year before there’s new ones or the series is over, you can almost feel your heart shatter inside of your chest like you have this close group of friends and they all suddenly died. It might differ to you what happens based on your fandom and your level of feels, but regardless of this, you will slip into some kind of a horrible fandom based depression.

You probably spent the last few minutes going like: “Yes, yes, oh god she understands!” or you’ve been going: “I understand none of this and now I’m scared.” In which case yes, you should be scared.

But what I wanna now is: Are you a member of any fandom? Has it destroyed your life or are you just finding this all terrifying and strange? Let me know down in the comments.

The most beautiful feeling

Today I have been able to see myself in a whole different light. I have never been so proud of myself in my entire life. I have realized that everything that I thought that was bad about me was an illusion. Everything I ever thought was wrong with me never really was wrong.

I cried tears of joy today. I am so happy to be the person that I am. It feels like I am in love with myself. I know it probably sounds super narcissistic but I don’t think is. Just because I think of myself highly doesn’t mean that I think I am better than other people. In fact, the more self loving I am becoming, the more I love and appreciate other people.

It is crazy to me that I used to believe I was worthless. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am a part of the infinite creation. I exist. The simple fact that I exist means that I am worthy. Creation doesn’t create pointless things. If I exist, it means that the creation thinks I am necessary for it to be whole. Without me it would not be “All that is”. It would only be “All that could be”.

I love the person that I am. I wouldn’t want to be anybody else. I enjoy playing this game called life. And I enjoy being this character. I value my gifts that I have been blessed with. I love my personality traits. Everything I used to think was wrong with my personality can actually be seen as a plus and as a strength.

Now I can look at myself in the mirror and I like what I see. I might not be beauty queen by society’s standards, but I am myself. This is my body and the only body I have in this life. It is healthy and functioning. It is perfect for me. I value it for what it is and I wouldn’t change it if I could.

It is my desire for all of you to know how beautiful you are. There is no better feeling than self love and self appreciation. It doesn’t matter what other people are telling you, what society is telling you. There never was and never could be anything wrong with you. You are wonderful, magnificent and perfect from the sources perspective. Your worth is inate. You could never take away from it and you could never add to it. You are allowed to love yourself just as you are in this very moment. It is your choice.