You may have read some of the stories about my awkward first impressions. (You can read them here and here.) And if you’ve never met me in person, then you might not know this about me: I’m really awkward.

Now, I’m typically awkward for first impressions, and hey, who isn’t, right? But let’s just say that I’m awkward often.

A few weeks ago I was on a mission trip and I became friends with two guys. I’ll call them Logan and James. They’re both juniors in high school, they are best friends, and I was in the car with them and my youth pastor as we drove to the campsite from the airport on the trip.

I was getting to know them for the first time, and although I was good friends with Matthew, the youth pastor, I didn’t really know Logan or James that well. So I’m over here, the only girl in the car, and sitting next to James who is asking me questions about my writing. (He was super sweet though and really interested which was a first, so I didn’t mind.)

Well, we all kind of decided that getting to know each other would be done best by sharing embarrassing stories. Specifically stories about poop and farts.

Like I said, they were two high school boys. So it checks out. (Kidding, kidding!) Luckily, I have two younger brothers and a good handful of guy friends, so I’m basically an expert at talking about poop and farts, right? (Don’t hate me, I am relatively normal, I swear.)

Anywho, we were sharing these stories (I’ll spare you the details) and Logan, James, and I ended up being great friends on the trip. (Which led to sharing more embarrassing stories.)

What is the point of this? Well, if you are like me and are awkward, then meeting new people can be really hard. Sometimes excruciatingly painful, right?

So how do we get over this awkwardness?

Like I said in the story above, I got to know Logan and James really well for various reasons, and here they are:

1. We shared an experience. The mission trip, driving in the car, serving North Carolina, and sitting on the plane together gave us something to remember together. Even if we weren’t talking, we were doing: we bonded about helping the people whose homes had been destroyed and we were able to connect because of the things we did on the trip.
2. We shared stories. Our embarrassing stories revealed something about ourselves: they make embarrassing mistakes, just like me! (Crazy, I know!) You don’t have to share poop stories though—you can ask, “Name a time you laughed so hard you cried” or another random question like that, and go and share. It’s an easy prompt, it’s not too deep, but you get to get to know one another in a simple way.
3. We were forced to be together. Now, before you go thinking, “That sounds horrible!“, hear me out. Logan, James, and I sat with each other in the car a handful of times and on the plane. That’s a small place where you can’t really move or avoid someone, and it was for long amounts of time! (I guess it means that the boys didn’t think I was annoying since we sat together on two of the three flights. That’s a relief.) But I find that it’s more awkward when you can move away, but it’s too awkward to find a way to move out of the situation. This however, can be a hit or miss.
4. We were focused on our mission. Our mission was to serve the community of North Carolina, that was the whole reason we were there! And it connects to numbers 1 and 3–we shared an experience (serving) and we were doing it together. There wasn’t an option to do it by ourselves. After all, it wasn’t for us, it was for the people of Swannanoa.

Now, I realize that these are not going to help you in every situation of awkwardness. It has helped me in just a few! And in all honesty, I can’t help you with your awkwardness. Why? Because I’m as awkward as heck and I’m still figuring that out.

So before you go judging me for my weird ways to overcome awkwardness and bond with teenage boys, check out these mindsets and then you can judge me. 😉

1. Mindset one: It’s going to be fine. The first one, maybe two interactions are the worst. This goes for kind of everybody. But then later, after number one and two? It will be fine. You’ll be fine.
2. Mindset two: It’s not just you. Did you know that literally everybody else overthinks the actions they’ve made and hate themselves for doing it and it keeps them up at night when they remember the time they had something in their teeth while talking to their crush?! It’s not just you—crazy, right?
3. Mindset three: People don’t actually notice as much as you think. Check out this sentence from The BuzzFeed News: In one 2000 study, Thomas Gilovich had [test] subjects turn up late to a classroom wearing a goofy Barry Manilow T-shirt. The subjects assumed half the people in the room would remember the T-shirt afterward, but in reality, only about a quarter did. Gilovich calls this discrepancy “the spotlight effect,” or our tendency to overestimate how closely other people notice what we do. So while you think everyone is going to remember that spinach in your teeth or stain on your shirt, most people actually won’t.

These facts are things that I so fondly ignore…especially at night when those horrible memories of embarrassing moments keep me up.

But fun fact: it’s not just you.

So go out into the world, don’t forget to check your teeth before talking to your crush, and don’t beat yourself up if you do forget! 😉 And most of all, have a good time.

~Willow 💙