I’ve always enjoyed being around people and considered
myself an extrovert; however, I was always kind of shy growing up if I was on
my own. I think I really depended on my close friends or older brother to kind
of break the ice for me. Being a shy extrovert is a weird thing. I love to
entertain a crowd and just make people laugh in one on one conversations or
groups. I was always just so terrified of the initial meeting; I think partly
because I always just dove way too deep in a conversation or did something weird
to break the ice and I always just came across kind of weird. So, I kind of
just made a few close friends to have people to be around, but eliminated the
need to constantly meet new people. Side Note: One of my best friends who I still
talk to frequently, I met at the beginning of 9th grade. We immediately
started a close and fun friendship. The fun thing about our friendship is that
a few years ago, she told me that for the first few months of our friendship,
she thought I was “slow”. Like mentally challenged and taking special classes
in high school. I’m dead serious, she says, I didn’t think you were mentally
retarded, just sort of Forrest Gump slow. You just smiled and waved alot." hahahaha. I told you I’m wasn’t good
at first impressions.
"Momma always said making friends was like a box of chocolates.
There's always one that's a nut on the inside."
"Momma always said making friends was like a box of chocolates.
There's always one that's a nut on the inside."
Anyways, I think one thing that really helped me really
expand my horizons as far as initial confidence in new friendships was marrying
Crissy. She can walk into a room of seven strangers and walk out with seven new
friends. I think that’s one of the things that I really liked about her. I
loved it too, because once we were married, we would kind of be the front man
and meet all of these new people for us and I could kind of lay back until I
was a little more comfortable and then kind of reveal my weirdness and awkward
humor. For example, she set up this dinner thing (long before we had kids) with
her high school friend and her new husband. We walked in and they hugged and
did a little catch up session. Once they stopped, I looked at three of them,
took a bouncy ball out of my pocket and said “Watch this” and just started
chewing and eating the bouncy ball. Of course, I thought it was hilarious.
Everyone else there… not so much.
Nice to meet you Jerry. Want to see something cool?
Being around someone so bold in meeting new people, I got
comfortable in her doing our first impressions and me being the long term kind
of friend. So I never really make myself grow in that area. Once we divorced
and it was just the kids and me, I think that was the first thing I noticed. “Seth,
you gotta learn how to quit being so shy and meet people.”
It was tough because I really love being around people and
making them laugh. Being kids all the time is awesome, but I enjoy adult
interaction from time to time. Now don’t get my wrong, I have a TON of amazing
friends that I’m dying to get together with, but unless you’ve been divorced or
separated after a long relationship to hang around my "Seth and Crissy friends", it’s hard to explain why that can be a bit
challenging. I guess, I still always feel one of two reasons:
Reason One.
People are trying really hard not to bring up Crissy. It’s awkward for them. Me
and Crissy were tight TIGHT. We are still friends, but I guess I feel like I
don’t want to pressure people into having to dance around the topic. I figured
I’m moved on and eventually the thought of Seth and Crissy will kind of just
fade away and it won’t be as awkward, but I do think it hit some of my close
friends hard. Plus, I don’t like to talk about the details of our breakup. I
don’t know what people have heard (truth or lies). I don’t want to have to
discuss it, but I’m sure our old friends would like to know some kind of truth,
It just feels like I’m putting old friends in an awkward place sometimes by
coming around. I know my friends are awesome, it’s just something I gotta work
out on my own.
Reason Two. I’m
in major third wheel mode. I’m at the age where most of my friends are married.
Not only that, but when you roll up to a friends house and your family
resembles clowns unloading out of a car at the circus, that can be intimidating.
When Megows show up somewhere, we make our presence KNOWN son. We roll up and
roll up hard. Sometimes I feel like my parked van at a new place is similar to
the opening scene of the first Jurassic Park with that velociraptor. Once I
open this door, all craziness is about to break loose. That feeling combined with
the third wheel is just too much at times.
The Megows are here....
Even though I love my friends and think they are the best
ever, I think I’m also kind of drawn to meeting new people that can understand
my current situation. This is where I was horrible at. Meeting new people. With
balancing work and the kids, I was kind of thinking I would just be a hermit
for this season of my life. Not by choice, but I didn’t have that person to
help me break out my shyness like before. Also, during my marriage I think I did
built up some sort of confidence that I was pretty cool and funny. Once she
left that really kind of messed up my self-confidence. I mean if the one person
that you were closest to in the entire world just kind of lost interest in you,
that junk can mess with your brain. When she left me, I was pretty much a wreck. We had been together so long and she knew every. single. detail. of me. I guess it was my worst fear trying to manifest itself in my mind. Especially, since that was kind of the reason I was always kind of shy my whole life. It was a tough few months at first.
However, I think I got tired of moping around. Also, I didn’t
want my kids to see that dad wasn’t confident in the person God made him to be.
I was afraid that lack of confidence might affect them as they got older. So I
told myself, I’m just going to me and put myself out there, but it did
practice. I knew I couldn’t just walk around with a pocket full of bouncy balls
;) I think I really tried to brainstorm about what my strengths were and use
those to my advantage.
I kind of narrowed it down to few things. The first is kind
of weird, but I have a good memory and can notice small details. Whenever I
would meet someone, I would do a quick scan of their clothes, their car, their
office, etc., just anything I could. Immediately, I would ask about something
or compliment the first thing that stood out. Then I would pull every amount of
knowledge I had about that subject. For example, if I met someone at church and
noticed they had cool glasses, I would just start talking about how I like
their frames and then talk about cheap ways to order glasses online. Or if I
saw somewhere wearing a football team hat, I would pull from my very limited
knowledge of football. I quickly learned that if you approach people with a
smile and show them that you are actually interested in getting to know them
and take time to notice little parts of their personality, they will typically
open up eventually. Until you get that friendship off the ground, you’ll always
have a topic of conversation to make small talk with (I’m horrible with small
talk, so it helps).
I met this one guy who I thought seemed really interesting
and smart, but wasn’t really having the goofy Seth routine. Finally, I heard
him listening to some Motown. I knew I had him ;) We sat and talked about the
Tempations, Otis Redding, the Chi-lites, etc. for quite a long time. Every now
and then I’d email a song or we’d talk about a memory associated with a certain
song. I guess I learned to approach everyone as a potential friend, I just have
to find the connecting string, whether it be music, food, kids, body odor, or
embarrassing teenage stories, there’s always something that connects everyone
to any specific person. I just gotta focus on finding a detail to break the ice
and hope I have enough stored in my big mouth to make a conversation out of it.
"You think you have bad B.O.?
Tomorrow, I'll skip my 12 minute application of Degree and we can compare smells."
Another thing I do to make friends is just be kind. Just being
realistic, we don’t have time to help every single person we meet, but offering
to care for someone’s pets while they are out of town or noticing they like
taco bell and buying them a $5 gift card just because, can really go a long
way. I’ve learned that I can get kinda of weird or intense, so to avoid over
analyzing what I say, I kind of go with the Michael Scott approach to starting
conversations.
Since I am aware of the fact that when I open my mouth I
know something random or some corny joke will pop out, I’m pretty conscious to
try to ground the friendship with something normal first. I think overall, it’s
helped. I’ve made a lot of new friends and starting to reach out to my old
friends that I miss so much.
This is pretty much me in every conversation I have.
-Seth
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