Photo by Balint Szajki on Unsplash

Assalammualaikum.

I mentioned this a lot - I am an introvert. I would rather spend most of my time alone and doing my stuff, just like most other introverts are. The thing about being an introvert is that sometimes we just did not notice how we have been shoving a lot of things inside as if our soul is made of a stocking. I keep a few close friends right beside me yet I still found trouble in expressing my worries and mishaps that happened to them. I assumed a lot and that attitude had taken a toll on me emotionally.

It all started with a snap, so soft and gentle, yet managed to cause a noticeable earthquake in my own world. I learnt that I unconsciously start shutting down the door to keep people out from coming. And it's bad. Hence, I decided to make a little change.

But I do not know what to do.  Imagine, sensing that we have to do something to stop the larger strings of problems from getting entangled but we just could not figure what are the steps to counter them. I do not know how I should deal with my growing awkwardness when it comes to meeting people. I have no idea what am I supposed to do when I have to meet people even for official purposes. I do not know how to initiate a conversation without leaving an awkward atmosphere afterwards.

Heh.

Five years forward, have I got over my social-awkwardness?

Yes and no. On the bright side, I learnt to mingle around the people I am not used to. I make friends with strangers-turned-to-friend real quick. I try to initiate a conversation whenever I met new people. I no longer shutting tight the door for people to get inside my circle - some remains as friend and acquaintance, a few might stay as the apple of my eyes uWu hehe.

As I tried breaking my social awkwardness, there are few things I tried doing:

My biggest problem when it comes to communication is often I am afraid of what others might think of me. I am so afraid that people could mistakenly assume that I am for not who I am - somewhere in the line just because I said something that I could have not intended to.

As I learnt Discourse Analysis last semester (yeah me trying to convince people here :')), communication involves the process of encoding (giving message) and decoding (interpreting message). In doing so, depends on the internal and external factors, such as sociological background, the interpreted message could have been different from what one's intended.

So, why am I telling you this?

Just talk. What I have learnt, there are things that bounded to happen. When someone mistook our words, remembers that we are allowed to correct them. I know the dreaded feeling where we just wanna talk but we seem to unable to blurt even a simple 'hi'. Suffocated, yes.

Photo by Fabrizio Verrecchia on Unsplash

Keep The Window Open

... even if you decided to keep the door closed. I used to be... furious at people who comes knocking at the door and when I finally summon the courage to open them up; either they just stood at the frame of the door, or back away.


I hate betrayals, and for me, that is a betrayal.

A part of me is saying that it is selfish to think this way. The world does not rotate around me - I am a part of this world. Therefore, I need to learn how to accommodate my own self than having people to do likewise for me.

We have to be careful with people we want to allow coming into our world. Extra careful. Plus, with the lines of things happened to me before, as much as I want to be more open to new people - I had no choice but to be selective.