Recently, I was thinking about a new blog post. One of my
friends suggested I do one about myself. Immediately, I shuttered at the
thought. Hahahaha. (I love to talk and
write, just not about myself). But then
I was thinking about all of the new friends I have made, especially within the
past year. Many of my new friends have never actually met my family in person.
At first it was kind of strange to me, but now I think it’s neat. Like internet
penpals or something. Then I thought a little deeper, I love telling stories
about and discussing my kids on the blog. It’s just so easy to do for me and
probably why most people read this thing anyways :) So I feel that people know a lot about my kids, but I never really described
myself. I did a post when I first started the blog titled “About Seth”.
Secretly, I’ve always hated that post. It was mostly just something to post so
I could get started talking about my kids. In that post, I think I
just talked about “enjoying peeing outside, my first car, my afro in high
school, and that I was a divorced single parent.” Nothing that descriptive. So back to my point, I wanted to describe
myself a little more in detail for friends who I never really physically met.
Just a real “get to know me and my personality” post.
Disclaimer: Again. I
really don’t like talking about myself like this. I find it awkward and uncomfortable.
Mostly, I just want to kind of introduce
myself to all of my new friends. However, I’m really bad at this, so let’s see
where it goes.
Well hello Seth. Nice to finally meet you.
Hmmm… where to start. I am a sibling of 4. We grew up in the
country and had goats, cows, chickens, two gardens. My dad instilled work ethic
is us at a young age. Which at the time I was not happy about, now though I’m
extremely grateful. Whenever I’m having a bad day at work I just stop and think
“At least I’m not scooping out 2 foot of compacted animal poop out of the goat
shed in the middle of summer in South Georgia. Hahaha. That was a smell.
I was forced to wear that sweater by the way.
Or was I...
If I had to describe myself socially, I would say I’m kind
of a “shy extrovert.” I pretty much recently discovered this. It’s definitely a
unique combo. I love entertaining a crowd, being around people, doing
impressions, etc. Internally though, I get super nervous just meeting someone
for the first time. It’s one of the main things I don’t like about my
personality. It’s weird. I would rather be given a mic in front of a big group
of people and told “just talk” than to meet a new person for lunch at a
restaurant. I don’t view it as a lack of confidence; I think I’m pretty
confident in myself. For some reason, I just draw a complete blank in those
situations. I’ve overcome a lot of it, and while I have learned tricks to “fake it
till I make it” with new people. It still is quite awkward a large percentage
of the time. hahaha
I think I’m pretty perceptive of people and can read others fairly
accurate. This combined with all of the God given empathy, I gained during the
low times of my divorce I think has really opened my personality up for the
better. On the flip side, I struggle with perceiving myself. I’m not really
introspective at all. I like to think of myself like an open book; the first
time you meet me, I think I’m pretty genuinely myself. I don’t really keep
secrets about myself or bottle up a lot inside. It’s just pretty much out
there. So when it comes to understanding why I do the things I do, I really can’t
say. Or when people ask me to describe myself or my hobbies, I don’t really
know what to say. Normally in those situations, I will just spurt out some
random nonsense or send a funny joke I have on my phone if it’s a digital
exchange.
This is kind of how it goes when I’m meeting a new person
and they start asking those questions.
New Person - “So Seth, describe yourself a little.”
Me – “Um. I have a hairy stomach, my favorite day of the
week is Thursday, and I enjoy breakfast foods?”
New Person – “Ok…Can you expand on that?”
Me – “I’m not wearing socks.”
New Person – “Huh?”
Me – “I brought a Santa hat. Want to wear it?”
New Person - *silence*
Me - *My brain starts to panic.*
My Brain - "Just say
something normal about yourself dummy."
Me - Sometimes my tongue feels bumpy.
One thing I do enjoy talking about is humor. I absolutely
love seeing people laugh. Ever since I was a little, little kid, I can remember
loving the feeling of diffusing a tense or dull situation with laughter. Now, I
don’t really view myself as super hilarious. I’m not super good at telling
jokes or thinking of hilarious things on the fly. I have friends that are and I
love being around them :) Mostly, I would describe my humor as a storyteller. I just love to tell
stories. I enjoy milking every awkward detail of a particular event to make
something absolutely hilarious. Plus, I’m not afraid to look like a complete
idiot in public to get a laugh. A lot of times, it comes off as weird. I don’t
really care though.
Here’s my thoughts on being “weird”.
Again, a lot of this post is to give people I haven’t
officially physically met a look at what makes “me” me. So let’s wrap up the
humor theme with a pretty good example of Seth humor…hahahaha. This memory
literally just came to me as I was thinking of a good way to describe what I
think is “Seth humor”. I have this shirt
that I like to call my “wedding shirt”. I have worn it to countless wedding. It’s
really not fancy at all. It’s a plaid pattern, and I am always extremely
underdressed for the occasion when I wear it. But I like adorning it to
weddings for a specific purpose. There are a lot of buttons, and they are snap
buttons not the kind you have to tuck into the hole. Upon arrival at the
wedding, I like to explain the purpose of the shirt to friends and just random
people that I meet there. The purpose of the shirt is to measure the
awesomeness of the wedding reception. I always start with the shirt completely
button up. Like all the way to my neck, which looks completely ridiculous and absolutely
hilarious. Everytime, I feel the reception getting a little more fun, I
unbutton one button. I like to view the shirt as a party meter. It gives people
a relative gauge on how fun the reception is actually getting. I’ve been to
some and never unbuttoned once; others I’ve gotten down to about 3 or 4 (That’s
stomach hair territory). Hence the snap
buttons. I love dramatically tearing apart each button when I feel the moment
come.
However, one specific wedding I guess my gauge was off. This is where my story begins. I remember it
was an afternoon wedding/reception. The bride and groom were sitting at their
little cute “newly married” table and people were walking up and congratulating
them. I can’t remember it being a super crunk reception, more the opposite.
Just a normal low key, yet formal reception. Although I was completely sober (I’m
not a huge drinker btw), my memory is just fuzzy except for one clear vision. I
recall winding up sitting with some random woman (probably in her 60’s and dressed
to the nines), meanwhile I was completely shirtless by this point of the
reception for some unknown reason. I remember egging her on to dare me random
things to do. Thinking back, I probably
explained my shirt and she probably dared me to unbutton it all the way, so I
probably ended up just taking it completely off. Anyways, for some reason,
she dared me to take the entire tray of petit four pastries and sneak the back
to our seats. I didn’t want to upstage the wedding, but she seemed so sweet
that if she thought it was funny then I figured most everyone else would. So I
just got up, made my way through everyone seated at the tables eating, grabbed
the tray, and calmly walked back to the back of the room where she was sitting
there laughing hysterically. We just sat there eating them and laughing, when I
noticed other guests walking back and forth of the food table looking for them.
I felt bad, so I got up and start walking the tray back to the table for other
people to enjoy. Suddenly, I hear her little sweet voice coming up from behind me
saying “You should just walk around serving them to people. That would be
funny.” So I did. I just walked around the reception for the next few minutes shirtless and serving little desserts to men (in shirt/ties) and women (in formal dresses) at the wedding. I remember I couldn’t even get out the words
“Would you like a petit four?” each time I walked up to a person, because I kept
looking at my friend who was kneeled over and laughing so hard she looked
completely ridiculous. This in turn made me laugh even harder. So I was just
kind of sticking the tray of food in people’s faces and hoping they would take
one. I think I only made it around 2 tables before someone didn't think it was funny at all. So I just set the tray back on the food buffet and ran back to my chair laughing like a 7 year old. I have no clue who that lady was and but I’m 92% sure she was probably an
angel.
To me, there is nothing funnier than taking off
my shirt at random times in random places.
This is our family
portrait at our friends’ daughter’s 1st birthday party.
Browsing through my facebook pictures looking for this image,
I actually found quite a few shirtless pictures of myself at random kids' birthday parties.
"Seth. Showing skin since 1984".
Ok, this post is kind of long. I feel so accomplished actually
writing things about myself :D But I want to touch on one more thing. I also
love little tools to help me understand people. The main two that come to mind
are the Myers-Briggs personality test and the Love Languages. I just find them
so neat and a great way to get to know people and show them love in the way
they desire it. In the Myers Briggs, I’m an ENTJ. I love being one. But I think
everyone should love themselves, so I guess that’s healthy that I enjoy my own personality :)
Click on the picture
of an explanation of my personality type and to find out yours!
It’s really so so
interesting. If you don't know yours, I think you should try :D
My love languages are different when I am receiving or
giving love. When I’m receiving love, I really enjoy physical touch, quality
time, and words of encouragement. I like those things. However, when I’m
showing love, I love the buckshot approach. There’s nothing better than showing
up to a friend’s house to help them with a project and surprising them with a
little gift and a note saying how awesome they are. Then after finishing the
project, just hanging out for a bit together and ending with a solid high five
or hug :) I
like love blasting people on all fronts.
PS. Mr Rogers is my
personal hero if you haven’t noticed,
but I’m saving that topic for a different
post ;)
Be Blessed and Be a Blessing,
Seth
