Five things I would rather do than talk to strangers.

So, I suck at being social. The thought alone of going into a group of people I don't know and having to stay there for any period of time is enough to make me sick to my stomach. Some people call it social anxiety, and I've had people tell me "it's okay, lots of people suffer from this, you should talk to a support group or something!"

... okay, people, clean your ears/eyes out and listen/read again. I hate talking to strangers. Why on earth would I go to a stranger and tell them that? Here's how a conversation between two socially anxious people trying to find support from each other would go.

"Hi."
"Hi."
"I hate talking to strangers."
"Me too."
*simultaneous panic attack*

I'm slowly forcing myself to be put into situations where I have to interact with strangers, and have no choice in the matter so that once I commit, I'm good. Meeting with customers is alright, but I still have trouble acting confident in my abilities around them so I tend to keep 90% of my business to e-mail, with meetings in person only to quickly go over a concept and get paid before I run for the hills. Meeting with this band I got hired into was the most terrifying thing I've done in a while because I had to meet with THREE new people at once AND they were judging me. However, I get over musicians a lot quicker than other people because you get to know them through their music when you're jamming. So I like them now! Still a little scared of the band manager because he's quiet and quiet people terrify me.

Even e-mailing strangers makes me nervous. I will put that off until I don't have a choice.

So, I compiled a list of things that I would rather do than talk to a stranger.

1. Wrestle a bear.



I would probably start out wrestling a bear but then it would be all like "hey bear, let's forget this foolishness and be friends and forget about people and that way I could escape into the wilderness and never have to talk to a stranger again and you could teach me bear ways." The bear would either be like "Yeah sure bro, let's go!" or "NO SCREW YOU" and try to eat my face, and then I would be all ninja and dropkick that bear. Either way I just become awesome, and that's WAY better than having a conversation with someone who would just judge me.

2. Get a paper cut.




All those people who are like "paper cuts are the worst thing to ever have happened, it feels like my hand has been destroyed forever!!" are big freaking wussies. Seriously. I'm an ARTIST, I work with paper all day and that stuff cuts me up good some days. The initial feeling is very similar to "OMG I'M GOING TO DIE" but literally one second later it's like nothing happened and you put a Scooby-Doo bandaid on it and voila, end of your problems. Conversations with strangers are accompanied for the eternity that you're stuck there with a feeling of impending doom. And not just normal doom, doom that will be the doomiest doom you have ever imagined doom to be. In fact, you're probably not going to survive, so give up now.

3. The Afro Circus Challenge.




Because afterwards you have no brain left and are not capable of normal conversation anyways, so who gives a crap if you have to encounter strangers after?

4. Fight Jackie Chan.




Okay, he would kick my as about a billion times faster than any bear could, but who WOULDN'T want to get their butt kicked by Jackie Chan? And I don't even care if he's a stranger, just because I'm fighting him wouldn't mean I would have to talk to him. And then I could show off my moves. I've got some sick drop-kicking moves.

5. Spend a week on "The Island" from Lost.



That's the creepy-ass slave ship that crashed on The Island that contained stupid amounts of dynamite and had people die in it chained to the walls and just basically screwed a lot of crap up. I would deal with the psychotic people that lived in a eerily joyful-looking town with white picket fences and happy yellow houses, the effing polar bears, the bigass black smoke monster than broke people, the random time travel, the lack of internet, and the ghosts... if it meant I didn't have to talk to a stranger.



So I actually put some thought into my top five there. I had some other ideas, but they were either nowhere hardcore enough to explain how much I hate meeting new people or defeated the purpose of not talking to strangers.

Things that almost made the list:
Read a dictionary
Take an arrow to the knee (but then I realized that would require talking to strangers: doctors) (also I realized people probably wouldn't clue in that I picked that option BECAUSE so many people overdo it and then they would judge me)
Touch a hot stove
Punch a shark
Get hit in the face with a bass drum pedal
Get a sunburn
Watch a horror movie alone in my basement at night

Unfortunately, none of these things are effective in helping me out of the horrifying fate of talking to people that I don't know, because I can't say things like "sorry, can't talk, have to go wrestle a bear," or "sorry, can't meet, I'm lost of the Island," or, "man, I'd love to but Jackie Chan really wants to fight right now!" so I just have to deal with the stupid amounts of awkward.

Which begs the question why I'm all cool with the idea of having a blog that random strangers are reading. Maybe because it's all anonymous and stuff. No idea. But here I am!