Sometimes I can be an introverted wee flower

By /
Despite the image that a lot of people may have of me as being 'out there', sometimes radical and often challenging there are times in my life when I get a bad case of the jitters. This happens mostly when I meet people for the first time "off my turf".

Case in point: A friend of mine offered up their house in Martinborough for the Riversdale's to go and play in as a way of "getting away from it all" and giving the us a wee holiday-ette. Top! Liz, after asking me, wanted to bring along a couple and their gorgeous girl as well - a sort of family friends away time.

Liz and Helen (for that is her name) get on like a house on fire. They met at Playcentre and very quickly have become great buddies. Iain is a top fella and, as I've said, their daughter Betty is a great wee girl and both Jack and Meg love having her to play with (and vice versa, I'm sure).

Martinborough wasn't the first time I'd met them, we'd had a few wine sodden evenings here in Chateau Miramar and we did have a great time - even if I did slur something rotten the second time, *hick*

So what went wrong on the weekend?

I do find it quite tough (sometimes) when I have to 'make the talk' with people I don't actually know that well. I tend to go inside and the art of conversation seems to dry up within me - something I'm sure some would like to have happen more often.

The outward symptoms of this 'unease' is usually perceived by others of someone that is either:
  • a rude sod
  • a pissed off person with something I've said/done
  • a shy and retiring person with not a lot of social grace
  • a bad man
And once I start the slippery slope down I find it very hard to pull myself up - in fact on a number of occasions it's ended up with me completely withdrawing from the social circle with me sitting in a room at the other end of the castle.

Not fun.
Not for me, Liz, the kids, the "others"

So what went wrong?
To be honest, I don't know. There's probably some deep psychological reasoning behind it all, maybe a chemical/medical explanation can also be put forward. The reason behind isn't too much of a concern, I now see it and am working to change it (thanks to some hard work from Liz intertwined with a lot of anger, patience, love and "When you do X I feel Y" type conversations).

In fact, I treasure these moments of lucidity in my life even if I don't necessarily enjoy the rocky road to it. There have been a number over the past 40 years I've been trotting around this globe and I am sure there will be more. Every time it has happened I have had to think long and hard about what I want, how I want it and what I will do to make sure it happens. Every time I have come out the other end a far nicer person to be with and a far happier person within me.

It'll be hard. Habits are hard to change- as a counsellor once told me, "Take a week to get up each morning and put your trousers on starting with the leg you normally don't stick in first. After a few days I guarantee you'll be back in the old way - and that's just putting your trousers on, imagine how hard it is to change ..."

Also, at work a colleague has taught me during the year that people (and therefore companies) need an, "Oh fuck!" moment to change as without it there's no real reason/impetus to do anything differently.

I have had my, "Oh fuck!" moment on Sunday.
I am determined to be mindful of the habit.

Wish me luck dear readers as I tootle off to be a different/better person ...

Oh, and three (added another) last items I have starred in my Google Reader that totally fit this posting:
[Updated] Added Anecdote link

Comments

Post a Comment

Be kind

Popular articles

Make Your Public Event Calendar Usable To All

Image
If you run a sports club, this post is for you. If you are on a community committee, this post is also for you If you host events, this is for you. If you put on shows, this is for you. In fact, if you do anything that has a date/time component that you'd like to share with people, this is for you . Yep, probably for all of us. Sharing calendars can be both: an effective way of letting everyone know a complete and utter technical pain in the bottomly region If you've posted up an events page onto your website you know how difficult it is to keep up to date, how the readers have to keep coming back to get the latest changes and don't even think about integrating with somebody else's "events page". Ok, so we all know the problem. What's the solution? iCalendar (normally shortened to iCal) ... yep, it's a geek word that you will come to know and love just as much as RSS. In fact, think of it as RSS for calendars. But that's enough geekery, if you want

The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

Image
It's feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

We All Agree The Climate Is Changing, But Not Why

Image
It seems to me, talking to my more "climate sceptic" friends that even they now accept that the world's climate is changing and we're all in for a bumpy ride of it. If you're one of the very few that doesn't think it's changing, explain this without resorting to lies: Region:  GLOBE Date Range: 1850-2022 / Data Source: UK Met Office Creator: Ed Hawkins Licensor: University of Reading / License:  Creative Commons Licence And for the Kiwis, this is what we're looking like: Region:  All of New Zealand Date Range: 1853-2022 / Data Source: Berkeley Earth Creator: Ed Hawkins Licensor: University of Reading / License: Creative Commons Licence And finally, here's the news for the Welsh Region: Wales Date Range: 1884-2022 / Data Source: UK Met Office Creator: Ed Hawkins Licensor: University of Reading / License: Creative Commons Licence Ok, so it's as plain as the end of your nose that the climate is warming up, we're starting to see the affects of

NO! The Greatest Story: Space Worm

Image
[Update: Poppy Hillstead was removed from the line-up in 2020 and all of series 1 - 3, in which she was a part, has been deleted. I would suggest not bothering with Gossipmongers anymore as this incident left a very bad taste in my mouth. And of course there is no longer anything to embed around the Space Worm, sorry folks] The GOSSIPMONGERS podcast has David Earl, Joe Wilkinson, Poppy Hillstead sharing gossip and rumours which are mostly hilarious, often scatalogical, and sometimes the greatest stories you've ever heard. The 2019 supreme champion is the TRUE Space Worm , listen up (starts at 37:35) and prepare to snort LOL Subscribe to GOSSIPMONGERS

Catastrotivity, The How To

Image
Exurb2a on teh Interwebs (don't ask me I'm not down wiv da kidz) is a a channel/person/"content creator" that I've only recently discovered and I very glad I have. His videos cover everything, are productions of genius with a lot to say, and can be very funny through some quite deep stuff. He also did, a few years ago, a mini series called Catastrotivity . In 6 episodes of about 10 mins each he gives you the OK, the "Go do it", the "Don't listen to them!" that he's learned over the years of creating. It's is very VERY good. Whilst the above is YouTube you can also get it as a podcast via Spotify, I did, you should.