Acca-Awkward.

There’s no doubt about it—I’m an awkward person. I’m about as awkward as trying to pull open a door that says push, making eye contact with the person in the car next to you as you are singing at the top of your lungs, or watching a sex scene in a movie with your parents. So it’s to be expected that I would end up facing quite a few awkward and uncomfortable situations in my dating life, and believe me, I have. But I know that I can’t possibly be the only one who occasionally suffers from mild to severe cases of awkwardness or who has dated someone with this. It has become an epidemic. It has gotten to the point where there is even a television show just called Awkward.

The purpose of this post is two-fold. For the many of you, like me, that encounter uncomfortable situations on at least a weekly, if not daily basis, here are a few stories I hope you can sympathize with. If I can help at least one person take comfort in knowing they are not the only one, then I would consider this a success. For you little weirdos that claim to have never had an awkward moment in your entire existence, first of all, I call BS, but I hope that you can learn a few things in case a situation would come up in the future…or at least have a few laughs at my expense.

When He’s the Awkward One:

Most of the time, these situations end up being even more rough than when you were being  awkward, because at least then you could laugh it off. How do you respond to someone that is oblivious to how uncomfortable they are making you? You either lie (Oh yeah, that’s totally normal…not weird at all), ignore it (...), or tell the truth (just stop it, you freak). There was this one guy in particular that I dated, (let’s call him Mike) that was always being super awkward. First of all, he would always ask permission whenever he was going to come within like 2 feet of me. Sometimes, he would even think about it ahead of time and ask me via text. Apparently even cuddling or hand holding can’t be spontaneous. Another time, we were hanging out and watching a movie, complete with popcorn. Now I don’t know about you, but I usually eat popcorn with my hands. I guess Mike does things differently, because I’m not even joking, he made me eat the entire bowl of popcorn with only my mouth…and watched! If that’s not uncomfortable, I don’t know what is. Yep, he was awkward alright. At first I thought of it as just a little quirk, but over time it crossed the border from awkward into the land of creepy. Towards the end of our relationship, I received a five page long text about how I was like a drug to him and he was so addicted and he needed me, etc. Yeaaaah…we’d only been going out for 3 months, it was long distance, and I didn’t even like him that much. Naturally, it freaked me out and I did what any sane 18 year old girl would do – I showed the texts to my friends, we laughed about it (in a haha, I hope he’s not a serial killer sort of way), and I broke up with his creepy ass.

When you’re the Awkward One:

Let’s be real, at some point  or another you will probably end up being awkward in front of your significant other (or if you are really unlucky, in front of your significant other and his friends and family). But it’s what you make of it. You can let it completely humiliate you and stop you from ever pursuing a dating relationship again (in which case, I hope you like convents) or you can play it off like it’s no big deal and move on with your life. My cousin, Hannah, once told me about a very awkward situation she had with her boyfriend Tom. Hannah and her friend were hanging out one day when they decided to look at engagement rings online because her friend was quite sure she would be getting engaged soon. (What girl doesn’t enjoy looking at engagement rings online? Am I right?) Hannah wasn’t thinking about getting married anytime soon, but it was fun to look. Later that night, after her date with Tom, he came back to her place and she remembered that she really wanted to show him this funny YouTube video of a penguin on a skateboard (I made that up…but the actual video is irrelevant). Unfortunately, Hannah had forgotten to close out the engagement ring tab and to her horror couldn’t quite click the X fast enough. Tom had seen it and immediately felt the pressure. Hannah bumbled around with the story about her soon-to-be engaged friend, but her bumbling only made her story sound like an excuse, not the truth. Then, to add a few more layers of awkward, Tom, not knowing what to do or say, nervously and hesitantly asked what kind of ring she liked.  And they lived happily ever after…I’m just kidding, they broke up. But for an entirely different reason I’m told.

It always seems as though of my awkward little “quirks” inconveniently come out every time I start dating someone. First of all, I’m a terrible hugger. It’s a long-standing family joke that at least half of the people on my dad’s side are super awkward side-huggers. And to add on to that, there’s the fact that I am also not real keen on physical touch…I’m more of a ‘stay out of my bubble’ sort of person. What this means is that I make the end of dates incredibly uncomfortable, because I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know how to do even the simplest goodbyes well. If he goes in for a handshake (which would be weird), I’m probably going to meet it with a high-five. If he goes in for a hug, I’m probably going to either give him one of my infamous side hugs or place my hands in weird places, trip over his shoes, and almost fall (yep…that happened). And if god forbid, he goes in for a kiss, well…there are too many ways I could mess that up to predict the outcome. I also have a terrible habit of inviting friends along when a guy invites me to do something that is clearly meant to be for just the two of us. I’m not sure if I do this because of nerves or what, but it just makes things unbelievably…strange….for everyone. Basically I’m the girl who creates 3^rd wheel situations on purpose.

So to sum things up: If you are genetically pre-disposed to being awkward, I can relate and sympathize. If you are a first generation awkward person, take comfort in the fact that you are not alone. If you have never had an awkward date in your entire life, well then I hate you.