Once again, I’m coming to you live from a big swing dance in Wichita. (Can’t you feel the excitement?) The dance is being held at the local Shriner’s…uh…shrine, and the ballroom is on the second floor, and the floor is literally shaking, bouncing up and down like a dime store pony. Earlier I had a vision, like, what would I do if the floor collapsed? In my fantasy, I’d jump up and grab a chandelier, and think, That was close, but the truth is that I’d probably just fall to my death and (on the way down) think, I wish I hadn’t had that pizza for dinner.

Last night Megan and I stayed up pretty late. I was blogging, and she was uploading pictures from the dance. You can find them here if you’re curious. Anyway, somehow we started talking about awkward situations at dances. I told her that my standard thing to do after a dance is over is to clap my hands together two or three times like a little girl and say, “YEAAAAAAAH!” And then I say, “Thank you for the dance” and run away because I don’t do so great with strangers and small talk. After “Where are you from?” and “What do you do?” I’m pretty much toast.

Once I told my therapist about a situation where I’d been spending a lot of time with one of my friends, and I ended up saying that I needed some space. So the next time I saw them, it felt really (like, really, really) awkward. And this is what my therapist said–“So let it be awkward. It’s probably them more than it is you.” And it was like this big revelation for me–let it be awkward–that it was okay for there to be tension in the air and it wouldn’t cause me to combust.

So I was telling Megan about how awkward I often feel when I try to make small talk with someone when a dance is over, how it often feels like I’m trying to force a connection that’s just not there, like the other person is giving me nothing to work with. And she said, “A lot of dancers are awkward.”

AND ALL GOD’S PEOPLE SAID, “AMEN!”

I mean, is she right, or she right?

“A lot of dancers are awkward.”

For whatever reason, this was like big news to me. Not that I didn’t know it before, but I just hadn’t applied it to my interactions. Instead, I was taking full responsibility for every bit of small talk and conversation–asking twenty questions, afraid of just a moment of silence. I was too afraid to let things be awkward.

So my take away from the conversations with my therapist and Megan was that it’s not just me (it’s you). Any conversation is two people, just like any dance is two people. And if things aren’t clicking, if things aren’t going well, sure, part of the responsibility is mine, but not all of it. The other person plays a part too. So my new goal, at least for tonight, is simply to be honest with myself–I’m getting along with this person, or I’m not. And whereas it may be awkward for a moment if we’re not connecting, it’s not bad. It’s just something to blog about later.

[Thanks again to Megan for the photos tonight (and the great, non-awkward dances and conversations). And to Nikki who actually took the photos.]