On me dit que le destin se moque bien de nous

Thursday wasn't exactly a bad day, until psychology class, when one of the girls from my study group sat next to me, and awkward socializing commenced. Let's call her Cal. She's sort of shy and quiet like I am, and you'd think that, because of that, it would be easier for me to relate to her -- but instead, I just feel even more clueless when talking to her. She's a cool girl, though, and she gets along easily with Bri.

We didn't have much of a conversation, and when we did talk, it was awkward. I had already seen her at the study group the night before, so there wasn't much catching up to do, and I just didn't know how to get the ball rolling again.

After class, I walked away feeling... well... demoralized. I mean, Bri and Cal are the two closest things I have to friends in college, and if I can't sit next to Cal in class and treat her like a friend -- after I've already talked to her on and off for a month, and gotten to know her pretty well -- then maybe I'm just doomed to be alone.

Looking back, I was irrationally upset about this... I couldn't even bring myself to go to the creative writing club. I had to take a detour on the route back to my dorm to avoid drowning my sorrows in a tall raspberry mocha frappuccino at Starbucks. I felt like a failure... but we had just learned about destructive coping habits in psychology class, and I wasn't about to become another emotional eating statistic.

Bad day. : (

The thing is, I know that I'm not horrifically awkward all the time. On Friday, Barack Obama came to my school -- I went to see his speech (alone), and wound up telling everyone in my French class about it. I even made a girl laugh by showing her the picture I took of him on my cell phone, in which he was about the size of a pixel.

Maybe the problem I had with Cal was that I kept trying to make small talk with her, and she was expecting a more friendly conversation. This brings me back to the issues I have about opening up to people, and trusting them to like me, rather than allowing the relationship to stay shallow forever. Maybe I confused her by acting like I met her five minutes ago, rather than joking around and talking freely. It wouldn't be the first time I've made this mistake.

Ugh. I know that the next time I see her, I'll do everything I can to be cheerful and witty and fun, and hopefully she'll realize that I mean well, despite the fact that I'm shy. I can't avoid her forever. And why should I? I'd rather attempt to fix something than to let it stay broken.

My friends from back home want to have a sleepover. I want to avoid people. I swear, every time I try to have a pity party, they come barging in. It's like clockwork.

Really, I couldn't ask for more. <3 But I'm nervous about seeing them, since it will be the first time I've hung out with them in three weeks... and every time I see them these days, I feel sort of like an outsider. But I'm sure we'll manage to have fun. Always do.