Sound Familiar?

I march into the grocery store to grab a few things. It's a Saturday afternoon and fairly busy but I'm hoping to get in and out quickly with no fuss. Hopefully I don't bump into anyone who knows me and I'm forced to engage in some mandatory small talk.

I wander along the isle in tunnel vision mode occasionally glancing up hoping not to see any familiar faces. I have to remind myself what I'm actually here for as my short attention span has failed me again and wandered off into the abyss, leaving me strolling around aimlessly.

I decide to take some initiative and seek out some eggs but whilst on-route the worst thing imaginable happens. I spot a guy whom I used to attend high school with (Very occasionally when I wasn't playing truant) He is out shopping with a girl of around the same age whom I'm guessing is his long term partner. I make this assumption based on the fact that they have matching sullen expressions suggesting they need a break.

I really don't want to talk to him because I've not laid eyes on him in ten years and I didn't have much in common with him back then. Who knows what are we going to talk about now. The weather has been pretty average recently for the east coast of Scotland so even that isn't available as a topic of conversation.

He hasn't spotted me yet so I consider turning around and just legging it, making a beeline for the bread isle instead. Unfortunately I've committed to eggs now so I have no other option than to continue on into endangerment. Walking straight into a potential melt down scenario.

We engage in some polite chit chat which consists mainly of him talking and me nodding and staring at the floor with the odd flickering glance up with a smidgen of eye contact in order to convince him that I am still actually focusing on anything other than myself.

He seems genuinely happy to see me but it feels awkward and there are some excruciating lulls in the conversation whilst my baby brain struggles to find the correct words and conjure up some form of intelligent witty banter. I feel my body temperature rising and my cheeks are burning. I'm starting to wish we'd crossed paths in the freezer section.

My self defence mechanism has kicked in full throttle now and all I can think about is getting out of there and back to a safe haven where I can cool off and embrace reality. Hopefully it's went unnoticed by my old friend but I'm now shaking like an epileptic at a light show.

I'm also fearful of boring them to death with all of my yea's, no's and blatant over the top oh really's! Typically in order to avoid awkward silences i have resorted to the robotic, generic questioning. I'm sure they have better things to be getting on with rather than hanging around being interrogated in Tesco's. Surely noone wants to listen what I've been up to for the last ten years.

So thankfully after what seems like a life time of torture we wrap it up. Moments later I come up with all sorts of hysterical one liners and amusing anecdotes all of which are all now irrelevant and useless as I saunter way feeling all deflated and disappointed in myself. Why couldn't I have been better? I retort. If only I was a normal person and not some kind of socially inept moron.

WHAT ABOUT THIS?

I am attending dinner at a nice restaurant with my partner and a few of her friends whom I am meeting for the first time. The first half of the night I really struggle to relax. I soon loose all sense of reality and begin focusing internally, warring with myself inside my head. I manage to convince myself that her friends dislike me or that perhaps they consider me boring and have sensed that I am nervous and find me strange in some way.

Very quickly I become overly aware of myself, my pulse rate has increased to the point my heart feels like it's going burst out of my chest similar to the scene from the film Alien. I'm sweating profusely and my face is burning up. As a distraction I make a rather pathetic attempt at conversation. It seems forced and unnatural. I talk far too fast to avoid prolonged unnecessary attention to myself.

My whole body has stiffened up and i am self-conscious of my clammy hands and the thick layer of sweat which has formed on my forehead. The position I'm sitting feels unnatural and is making me restless a I shift around nervously in my chair. "It’s my time to shine" I consider whilst stuttering nonsense to the seemingly baying audience, nearly knocking over my glass of wine in the process (a regular occurrence for me)

I'm barely even following the conversation. Just battling with myself internally, laughing nervously in all the right places and nodding my head when applicable. I have decided the convenient moment has arrived to excuse myself to the bathroom. Time to stop being a weirdo and sort my s**t out!