I would like the write about three linked incidents on the topic of awkwardness.
Last school holidays I worked at an indoor pool watching children swim, assisting them to pull goggles and strap floaties on. One afternoon a be-goggled red-headed boy swam up to me and asked
"Excuse me, do you know how to become someone's friend without seeming awkward?"
I was a bit thrown by how earnestly the question was asked and was deeply affected: this is something I hadn't known how to go about myself for most of my childhood. Nonetheless I gave a pretty practical answer - ask their name and ask what they are playing, and whether they would like to play with you.
He thanked me and swam off to do some thinking, and I crouched there doing some thinking too, watching others paddling and splashing.
After a few minutes he swam back up to me.
"Excuse me, I'm not very confident."
I reflected to him that sometimes people need to pretend to be more confident than they are in order to achieve particular goals, and that in actuality he may be more confident than he admits to himself. After all he asked a rather bold question that many people would be too hesitant to ask. His very actions revealed the falsity of his disbelief in himself. He nodded in agreement and swam away.
After the signal had gone for everybody to hop out of the pool and start getting changed he scuffled past and said "Thank you very much for helping me" with a nice smile. I asked how it went, he said it went well. Even this gesture, his thanking me, had the same unique combination of sincerity and tactlessness that his original question did.
The very admittance of your own awkwardness is both deeply awkward and so authentic that it is quite natural.
I know a few people who display this paradoxical behaviour. And I suspect that I might be one of them.
A few years ago I admitted to a group of strangers that I was petrified because at a deep level I doubted whether I had any character, any substance, any defining qualities that made me distinct from the blur of humanity. The man orchestrating the conversation said it was character that compelled me to ask such a cutting question. Sometimes our own nature is so close to us, like a second skin, that we fail to see it completely.
I find there is something very attractive about people who are honest about their gawkiness, their nervousness, their ineptitude. Because awkwardness is essentially difficulty handling oneself, the very act of conceding that you have faults or issues or parts of yourself that you don't yet understand is the reversal of awkwardness. It's the momentary artful expression of artlessness. It's a ritual. People who are constantly undergoing such rituals are wonderful to be around, they're always renewing themselves, always undoing themselves. But more pertinently they are always just themselves, without any veils concealing however graceless or imperfect they are.
Last school holidays I worked at an indoor pool watching children swim, assisting them to pull goggles and strap floaties on. One afternoon a be-goggled red-headed boy swam up to me and asked
"Excuse me, do you know how to become someone's friend without seeming awkward?"
I was a bit thrown by how earnestly the question was asked and was deeply affected: this is something I hadn't known how to go about myself for most of my childhood. Nonetheless I gave a pretty practical answer - ask their name and ask what they are playing, and whether they would like to play with you.
He thanked me and swam off to do some thinking, and I crouched there doing some thinking too, watching others paddling and splashing.
After a few minutes he swam back up to me.
"Excuse me, I'm not very confident."
I reflected to him that sometimes people need to pretend to be more confident than they are in order to achieve particular goals, and that in actuality he may be more confident than he admits to himself. After all he asked a rather bold question that many people would be too hesitant to ask. His very actions revealed the falsity of his disbelief in himself. He nodded in agreement and swam away.
After the signal had gone for everybody to hop out of the pool and start getting changed he scuffled past and said "Thank you very much for helping me" with a nice smile. I asked how it went, he said it went well. Even this gesture, his thanking me, had the same unique combination of sincerity and tactlessness that his original question did.
The very admittance of your own awkwardness is both deeply awkward and so authentic that it is quite natural.
I know a few people who display this paradoxical behaviour. And I suspect that I might be one of them.
A few years ago I admitted to a group of strangers that I was petrified because at a deep level I doubted whether I had any character, any substance, any defining qualities that made me distinct from the blur of humanity. The man orchestrating the conversation said it was character that compelled me to ask such a cutting question. Sometimes our own nature is so close to us, like a second skin, that we fail to see it completely.
I find there is something very attractive about people who are honest about their gawkiness, their nervousness, their ineptitude. Because awkwardness is essentially difficulty handling oneself, the very act of conceding that you have faults or issues or parts of yourself that you don't yet understand is the reversal of awkwardness. It's the momentary artful expression of artlessness. It's a ritual. People who are constantly undergoing such rituals are wonderful to be around, they're always renewing themselves, always undoing themselves. But more pertinently they are always just themselves, without any veils concealing however graceless or imperfect they are.
The speedo
