blueswede

this whole confidence thing isn't working out

It would seem that once again I've single-handedly destroyed
another opportunity to branch out socially.

So on Friday, I was sitting around with some laundry going,
trying to make up my mind what to do with the evening. I'd
been planning on attending a talk on the RIAA, but for some
reason it was postponed, so my schedule was open. I didn't
really feel like doing CS homework ALL NIGHT, the movie over
at the campus theater didn't interest me, my roommate headed
out for a while to celebrate his birthday, and so I was left
with nothing but my own creativity.

Acting partially on impulse and partially on advice from one
of my friends, I decided to call up this girl I had met last
week, see how she was doing and if she was game for watching
a movie or some damn thing. Unfortunately she had her phone
on auto-forward, and I left possibly the most retarded voice
mail message of my entire career.

At any rate, unless she called back last night after 9:00 (I
was out from then on), there hasn't been any word back. I'm
hoping my roommate just didn't get the message to me yet, as
he was asleep by the time I returned last night, but I think
we all know the odds of that, given my track record.

It's just another in a long string of screw-ups on my part,
caused by some mix of overenthusiasm, misplaced confidence,
and impulsiveness. I'm not 100% sure what the motivation is
here; I guess since I made friends fairly quickly last year,
I thought it should be easy this year, too.

What I seem to forget is that my friends from last year are
a very unique lot. Last night, for instance, the discussion
turned into a 15-minute laugh riot stemming from a typo on a
Chinese restaurant menu. I won't go into details, but it's
safe to say that at least four of us are horrible people,
myself included of course.

I'd like to think otherwise, but the world seems to continue
suggesting that the friendships I built up last year were a
result of circumstance and dumb luck, and I'll likely never
be able to replicate that sort of success. Whether that is
really the case remains to be seen.

Still, it bugs me that things happen this way. I think I've
found a friend, and then I get pushed away in some fashion.
Am I really that awful? What is it about me that seems to
drive people away, especially women? I'm not trying to get
a date here or anything like that, but it seems like that is
what's being perceived.

I don't know, maybe I make people uncomfortable or something
like that. Nobody's ever suggested that I'm overbearing at
all; in fact it's usually been quite the opposite. Is there
some sort of aura deal at work here? Or do I have presence
enough to be a "powerful silence" or some such noise?

None of it really makes a whole lot of sense from where I'm
standing. I guess the simplest explanation is that I've got
some poorly-distributed amount of self-confidence which has
basically become foolish bravado.

My life was easier when I just listened to my insecurities
all the time.

This is Dave, signing off.