Chasing Silhouettes

The 20s are all about getting out there. It honestly takes a whole lot inside of you to talk to someone you've never spoken to before. There's a huge difference between actually knowing someone and knowing of them, the latter is problematic and while it's fine to look from afar, what stops us from taking that next step and striking up a conversation? All it takes is literally one spark. Saying hey, hello, or hi with a person's name is so powerful. It still freaks me out when certain people even address that I actually exist. Like you know my name? No more chasing silhouettes.

*First and foremost, check out my Greek Sync performance! It's kind of the reason for the this post. Apparently all it takes is a few pelvic thrusts, a killer smile, and one hell of a raspy voice to become a legend ... I may never know why.

This past week has been an out there one to say the least. Once you've watched the dance performance right there, this post makes a ridiculously lot more sense. So Monday night was the epic Greek Sync and after I got home later that night the amount of friend requests I received, almost all from sorority women was unreal. Like calm down people, I am one man who cannot handle all of this at once. Even more so this week, more and more people will just say hey to me or stop to talk. The stranger-danger barrier is gone. We are no longer alienated or othered as a stranger, but now we can just converse. That initial first meeting, that introduction, a hello and a small exchange is literally all it takes. Sometimes words don't even need to be exchanged, just going into a conversation without introductions achieves the same thing. All these people I have never in my life spoken to have just normalized our acquaintanceship. For example, there's this girl Abby who's in my religion class, we're both aware that we're apart of fraternal organizations, and that we live in the same building, and it wasn't until just after Greek Sync that we had something to talk about and go from there. Now I'm not awkwardly pretending I'm not aware of who someone is. There's this girl Emma, great sense of humor, and we'd been facebook friends since the semester, but I hadn't met her until last month and I decided to just talk to her when she happened to be sitting in the lobby. Now when I see her the exchanges aren't forced at all, and it just happens naturally. Somehow I've instantly become comfortable talking about more than superficial things with someone I barely know. My buddy Kace, we had lunch one time and it changed our friendship and the way we relate to one another. It's been made ordinary for me to hit him up to invite him to something or just check in. I remember when I first hung out with my good friend Mac at the beginning of this semester in the library. I was literally so nervous and was so afraid that we wouldn't actually click or have anything in common other than classwork. A few hours of swapping random life stories and it was like I'd known him for a long while. That weight of anxiety, that fear of rejection and uneasiness, all was gone so quickly. That first barrier is the hardest one to knock over and only because we make it that way. In actuality it's a simple as saying hello. The only word you ever need to say is hello. We chase silhouettes of people and create ideas of who we think people are, and maybe we don't what to change those idealized versions of people. I'm here to tell you the real thing is so much better. The flipside of that however is there are so many people I've been in classes with and we're totally aware that we're on the same path, in a similar social circle but have never addressed one another #awkward. But not everybody is going to want to (probably should process why that is) and that's okay, to a certain extent. Try to talk to someone new. You don't need a reason to say hey. Compliment them and then go from there. Smile and say hi. Follow up with someone's comments from class and wanting to genuinely know more about their opinions. It's so apparent when you walk around campus how long it takes you to see someone you recognize, but more specifically those you actually say hey to. For me, almost any point in time I'm in the vicinity of someone I know of but more commonly know, at least enough to talk to them. We really have nothing to fear when it comes to people and nothing to lose except a chance to add someone new to the mix that is our lives.

Okay, this is completely going to sound utterly insane but bear with me. Is it weird to wonder about your life and I guess the inherent significance that comes with it? So like I was thinking today, if I didn't exist would people know me (well no because I wouldn't have made an appearance in anyone's life - like what does that mean, the Holy Spirit or something) and I came to the conclusion that they would have this uneasy feeling that something or someone (aka me) was missing. There's some people you can't live without and when they're not there that void in life is so apparent (like blackhole status). My parents, siblings, and best friends are my everything. When anyone is absent when we're all together, oh their presence is missed so dearly. When my friends have gone out of town, my solemnity gets way too real and I realize how much I truly enjoy having them around. I want to ask if it's the same for me, do I mean as much to people as they mean to me? If I miss something, how much little or much of an impact does it actually have? All good questions because we think who are is crucial to this world. While that may not be exactly true, it is to a certain extent. We are all and I mean all important to someone. Whether we know it or not, we matter. Regardless how we feel at any point in time, we have significance to someone, somewhere, somehow. When we're more than just silhouettes of ourselves around another person, it changes everything. I'm still stuck on this other kind of out there question. Why do people like me? Do people even like me? What is it about me that people like? If was going to be objective in describing myself it'd be hard to find words to articulate how I see myself. The words quiet, reserved, pensive, empathetic, quirky, naïve, authentic, passionate, funny, and intentional all come to mind. I'm so very aware that that's not how other people perceive me to be, but then what is it that people seem drawn to? What makes me any more interesting than anyone else? Who wants to actually hear my about my life? When you think about it, none of it makes sense and yet we operate in that capacity. Chasing silhouettes one and all.

The 20s are all about mustering up the courage to talk to someone new. It's quite possibly the most nerve-wracking thing to do, but once it's done and over with, you're able to totally just be you when you're around someone. Better to break the ice, than tip toe awkwardly on it, waiting for it to crack at any point and drag you under. The contrast between that anonymity and chasing silhouettes as opposed to knowing basic information and already building something like a rapport is supremely stark. It's like the light and dark sides of the moon. Take a chance, and just go.

My blog post question for the day is ... what motivates you to talk to someone new? I have to challenge myself to do it. Like internally tell myself to push myself to get out there and interact with new people. I'm missing out on the opportunity to know new people and for them to know me as well!