Your palms are sweating. Your heart lodges itself into your throat, and you can no longer swallow. You wonder if you’re having a heart attack.
If only you could be that lucky.
No, it’s the 5 seconds between you coming up with something clever to say and meeting that complete stranger for the first time. Oh, and that complete strange happens to be your Boss, your future in-law, or that co-worker you’re going to be sitting next to for the indefinite future.
It’s the Awkward Introduction.
“So I heard that you’re no good at cooking.”
“No! I mean that you don’t like cooking and I mean that I am no good at cooking and I agree with you that I don’t like cooking because I’m no good at it.”
Yeah, you still didn’t get it right. And no, that wasn’t clever.
At all.
You now get to spend the next hour and a half (that’s 90 minutes …. which also happens to be five thousand seconds) trying to recover from your terrible, terrible comment because that’s the table you were assigned to, and yes, you do have to sit in that chair because don’t you see your name on the placard?
That’s the second dumb thing you’ve said.
Now you get to sit uncomfortably in the middle of the table, coincidentally in-between the two funniest people in the room (in the world?) who deliver original joke after original joke that would earn them thousands should they wish to pursue a career in comedy.
Now your only company is the frog lodged in your throat because you’ve already used up your benefit-of-the-doubt.
Twice.
…
Finally. The tile screeches as a couple of chair legs drag across the floor, signaling the beginning of the end of the gathering.
The invisible clock begins ticking in your head. How soon is too soon? How long is too awkward? Do they wish you were already gone?
After you wait what seems like an appropriate time (it’s been 20 minutes, but it seems like 3 years), you make your move.
“Thank y’all so much! It was so nice to meet everyone!” Liar.
You walk out the door (don’t run, don’t run) and shut it behind you, imagining all the gossip that started the moment everyone heard the door click.
You rush home, longing to “veg” and forget about the episode. You walk over and click on the computer and get yourself a glass of water.
And then you sit down and begin to blog about the experience.
