Let's just preface this by saying I love people. As soon as I get comfortable with a certain individual (so, two years, give or take), I have no problem seeing his/her lovely face every day of the week. I could go bowling and ice cream-ing every minute of every day with a select group of friends (let's not talk about how much I do actually go ice-creaming) and not be exhausted, bored, wishing I was an alien from mars, whatever.
But come time to meet a new face, some of the worse words ever uttered are you should go talk to him.
The cuter said new person is, the more I'll avoid him. I know, my brain is scary. We've fought on occasion.
You know that feeling where you're about to scale a mountain, and you've got all your supplies, you've got your trip mapped out, and you just have to gather the courage to actually get onto the mountain? That's what saying hello is like.
Bonjour, however, is another story.
I don't know what it is about other languages, but they instantly make talking to a new person a million times times easier. Before, awkward pauses and odd word placement made you an idiot. Now, you're just someone trying to branch out from your native tongue. And every time you initiate a conversation, you're not trying to be an annoying stalker; you're just trying to get some extra French practice.
I think the U.S. should initiate a new law that everyone's crush should automatically speak the other's foreign language of interest.
Also, you get to involuntarily spit a lot when speaking French at people. Which is always a fun time.
I once had a friendship that was mostly based on swearing at one another in French. It's the only time I've ever been able to exude annoyance at someone without being an asshole.
Maybe it's just me, but figuring out the reasons for approaching someone can be tricky business. If you walk up to someone because his face reaches Brad Pitt level of gorgeous, you're superficial. If you walk up to someone because she's talking about John Green, you're an evesdropper. Language seems to reach the non-creepy level of approachable-ness.
In reality, almost everyone likes to be reached out to because someone thinks they're nice. But for the purposes of this blog, that would be too logical.
Unfortunately, not everyone speaks some exotic language; saying "hey" to an English speaker shouldn't be nearly as scary as we make it out to be. And since I haven't made an advice-y type blog in a while, I present to you some things I've learned about approaching people whils't decreasing some level of dorkiness:
1) Talk about mutual friends/co-workers
Not in a backstabbing kind of way--go for the kind of conversation that said mutual friend wouldn't mind being conversed about. Maybe your friend Bob invented a drinking game where you have to take a shot every time it rains in State College. Or your co-worker got a malicious cat and has scratches on her left toenail. It can be tricky to blindly search for common ground, but starting off at a point you know both conversationalists can contribute to leaves out a lot of awkward pauses.
2) If possible, bring the mutual friend into the conversation.
You're gonna feel quite a bit of pressure when you're on the shy side and are responsible for 50% of the conversation. Don't let your friend take over the encounter, but just knowing that someone else is there takes away the "oh god what should I say next? Should I make eye contact with them the whole time? What if that joke wasn't even funny?" (Spoiler alert: if it's a pun, they probably won't think the joke was funny). This especially works when your friend is bubbly and can that bit of "wheee!" to a chat.
3) Discuss news that everybody knows about if they're not dead.
The Zimmerman trial evoked quite a few interesting conversations. What can I say, controversy initiates great friendships sometimes.
4) Poke fun at them.
I know, a lot of this advice could be put in a negative light. I might as well just be telling you to become backstabbing bullies to win friends. But what I mean is that we've all been at that small-talk stage: "what do you like to do for fun?" "Any siblings?" "Do you like coffee?" (although you should ask this when looking for future relationships because 1) It could lead to a date if they say yes, and 2) if they say no, it's obviously a deal breaker). Once you get to lightly tease someone, it's a subtle way of saying "I'm comfortable enough with you to notice your quirks."
Telling a new female friend to lay off the cheeseburgers is probably not the fun-poking route to take. But I was just talking with a co-worker about sleep--as a side note, you probably shouldn't advertise that you crash after 9:00 and are "so lame," but let's pretend that never happened--and when he mentioned needing his "beauty sleep," I was able to make an "oh, okay" eye roll in response.
Or that just makes you a total dick. Still figuring that one out.
If all else fails, pretend you're mute or have a rare throat disease.
Namaste.
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