Social Skills

This time next week I’ll be having my first bath in roughly 7 years – wow, that makes me sound dirty. I’ve had showers for so long, I can’t remember what a bath feels like. My dad, boyfriend and I are going to Ilfracombe on Friday the 29th, and I searched in particular for an apartment with a bath. I’ll be sure to take some bubble bath with me and take full advantage!! Not really all that fond of showers, they’re so lame. Yeah they do the job but they’re not relaxing, and that’s what I need to do. Relax, or ‘chilax’, as people seem to be saying more often now. I’m not a cool person. Far from cool. But, not so un-cool that I am hot. No, no. Try going the other way along the spectrum. So far from cool I’m like liquid nitrogen. Yes, that’s better.

At the end of the day, people are who they are. I know that sounds like an obvious thought but what I mean is, no matter how hard we try and develop social skills or try to improve the person we are, sometimes, some people, just can’t do it – I am one of them people. No matter how hard I try to socialise. No matter how hard I try and get on with people. No matter how hard I try to sustain friendships, I often fail. I am failing. I used to believe that if you continuously put yourself into testing situations you can overcome your fears and gain new skills but my belief in that is running thin. It feels like I have a huge sign on my forehead telling people I am a loser.

The brain is a strange thing, isn’t it? It’s amazing how some people triumph in certain areas and totally flop in others. It’s amazing how we can easily pick up certain talents but fail so miserably in other tasks. Socialising, to me, isn’t like learning how to play a sport or a new hobby such as knitting. It’s in a different league. Human beings on the whole are social creatures so why is it so easy for people to easily take up and learn hobbies or sports, but it is so damn hard to learn how to talk to people, and engage in conversation? Seriously.

Yes, I know I work every day and I go to Red Cross events and I do get on with people, to an extent. I struggle to call people ‘friends’ because, they just don’t feel like friends to me. I mean, I don’t think they consider me a friend – just someone they know. Getting to know. I don’t know but there’s a barrier, that I just cannot smash through. The barrier where I feel totally at ease in saying “I am their friend”.

It’s hard. Out of everything this is probably the main thing that holds me back so much. The fact I’m weak when it comes to socialising, feeling that I am lacking friends and fear of engaging in conversations because I just run out of things to say. Or say the wrong thing. This also leads onto my insecurities but I’m sure lack of social skills isn’t to blame for this entirely. But that’s another issue, for another time.

Tags: people, thoughts

Past Weekend

The training course reached my expectations. It was a huge bore.

I’d say out of the 7 hours of talk, about 20 minutes was relevant to the area my colleague and I works in. The child care service and family social work were talked about at great length and I was surprised at how little adult services were talked about. I guess it was interesting in places, but I’d rather have been working.

In the afternoon everyone was fidgety and there was a woman who’s phone kept going off – that irritated me. It rang once and she said sorry and stopped the call, I thought she switched it off or put it on silent, but no. Then, she went outside to answer the phone and some people around her got into a giggling fit. In the end the trainer had to ask one woman to leave the room.

Onto other news, my mum left a voicemail to say she won’t be going with us on the 29th to Cornwall. Three guesses, who’s stopping her? Starts with ‘boy’ ends with ‘friend’. She says it’s because she is moving soon, but yeah – right.

Saturday was a very long day.

I went to the Racecourse in the morning and it was a looooong day. Last race was at 5:25pm. I was in the medical unit with a few other volunteers for the first 3 races, then we were going to swap over and go on the course itself for the final 4 races.

When we got there the floor of the unit was a bit dirty. One of the women volunteers left to go get some milk, and I was left with the two ambulance guys. We were in the unit sitting on the chairs and one of the guys said, “So, what shall we do now?” I said in a joking manner, “you can start by washing the floor” He and the other guy then started to sweat a bit and were like “oh no, no, I can’t do that”. I then went onto a mini rant about men and they laughed “ok we’ll do it, want your feet massaged too?”
“Yes please”

We then sat around for a bit, got the TV working and watched Rugby. Wales vs Italy. What a great match!! We didn’t watch it all, had to go out on the track but we won by a landslide!!

Didn’t get any casualties. Two horses collided though and one of them horses were in a bad condition. Don’t know the outcome, not sure if I want to know.

Got home at 6:30pm and was out the house in an hour. Went to town with work colleagues. Felt like a bit of a spare wheel because they each invited some of their friends and I dunno, didn’t feel right. Got back home a tad late but sober, must have sobered up on the way home

Oh, and my car got egged too. I think it was next door. Before I went out on Saturday they asked, “Where are you going?”
“I’m just going out for a bit”
“town?”
“Seeing some friends”

I wasn’t going to give them a direct answer. Why should I anyway? They were only being nosey, why should I give them the satisfaction? They only talk to us when they want to know something, rest of time treat us like crap!!

Either they egged my car because I wouldn’t answer them properly or because I looked so damn hot they wanted me to stay on the doorstep and hated seeing me getting in the taxi and leaving. I am more inclined to think the first.

Oh, and I didn’t get that foot massage off them ambulance guys.

Tags: family, jobs/careers, life, people, thoughts