I wonder what your thorn was, Paul. Thank you for what you've taught me.
I went bowling yesterday, right after institute, after my friend from the home ward invited me to tag along. It was a really cool experience, gathering with a group of people I barely knew and building relationships, in most cases, completely from scratch. I haven't spent much time with many people beyond my family and coworkers since I got back from Jamaica, so I went into the thing feeling pretty nervous, worried I might completely fail at being social. And I totally did at first! Oh, man, my inner psyche was having a blast, constantly dropping one-liners and frank appraisals of my complete and total ineptitude at contributing to the atmosphere. Determined, I thought back to that Doctor Who episode, "Love & Monsters," with Elton taking the charge.
Step 1: Engage your target. Find some excuse to start a conversation. "So, uh ... you ever bowled here before?"
"Nope."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
Step 2: Without provoking suspicion, get on first-name terms with the target. "Oh, yeah, so my name's Zac."
"Oh. Jack?"
"... sure."
Step 3: Ingratiate yourself with a joke or some humorous device. "J. K. Rowling? More like J. K. Bowling, amiright? Let's get some toad chorus playing and wingardium leviosa some steeee-riiiikes up in here!"
Silence. Awkwardly so.
"Heh heh... right."
I just skipped step 4 at that point. That's what I get for trying to use Doctor Who to improve my social skills.
Regardless, things turned out well. I found some similar interests with each of my bowling fellows, I helped lead cheers for each bowler as they tried their hand, and we were all laughing and having a great time as I drove the lot of them home after filling up on Jack in the Box. What a great time.
No comments:
Post a Comment