Nervous and Irrational

My heart rate begins to increase, my breathing slows, and my chest feels tight. I begin to lose the ability to focus, and I feel as though I am no longer in control of my body. I bump into things, begin to worry about everything that comes out of my mouth. I stumble on words, I say almost nonsensical things.

Obviously, I am nervous.

The situations in which this nervousness occurs is almost random. I am hit with waves of nervousness when I have no reason to be. I get the obvious public speaking nervousness, but that I can cope with. It's the social nervousness that I hate.

Just today, I became incredibly nervous when talking to someone I've known for three years, I ran into a door, I could barely stand still, I could barely breath.

This helps contribute to my occasional social awkwardness. Occasionally, when someone I know (most likely a cute girl) walks up to talk to me, I lose all complete ability to form complete sentences, and lose my extensive vocabulary, reduced to only the simplest words and phrases.

After these encounters, I often replay them in my mind over and over again, cringing over the stupid things I said.

Even when I know I am going to see someone I am usually nervous around, I total screw it up. I plan out everything I am going to say, and insert what I think they will say in response. Though, in practice, I flub everything.

The worst thing though is when I think of a clever joke for the situation, and I screw up the timing/delivery/the whole damn thing. That's when I really get mad at myself. Not only did I look like a complete fool, but I screwed up my chance to appear witty, humorous, and smart.

The amount of people that must think I am a moron is most likely high. I do a good job of portraying myself as such. I have actually used that to my advantage at work lately, trying to make customers think I am dumb so they will stop asking me questions. It's wonderful, I can clean the lobby at work, think about some deep philosophical matter/my last awkward social situation/how much I hate my job, and a customer can walk up and ask me a question, and I can mutter some unsatisfactory response, and they will give up.

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When I go to shop somewhere, I know what I want, usually. And, I know where it is. So, I will walk to that aisle, and... oh no. Someone is already in that aisle, right where I need to look. So what do I do?

I walk around until they leave. Yep, that is my irrational response. I just can't stand looking for what I want at a bookstore with some guy standing right next to me. I always imagine that person judging my selection of literature, or something. I'm not sure what I imagine. I just know that I can't do it. Just like I can't pee if there is someone else in the restroom, I can't browse with someone in the same aisle.

It gets bad too. Once, when I went to a bookstore wanting to buy a graphic novel (I ended up buying Blankets, which I cannot recommend highly enough), I saw someone in that aisle. I had just started my graphic novel reading, which meant I definitely couldn't search for something with someone hovering over my shoulder. I waited twenty minutes for this guy to leave. Seriously, I wandered around for twenty minutes, until this guy left the aisle. I was pretty ashamed, I have to tell you.

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More Soon. No worries.

Also, to mention, the other blog is slow to update. Not because of lack of ideas, but mostly lack of time. It has also been difficult to try and write what I've been wanting to write. Not sure why. But, I will relaunch it soon, make it a little different. I have lots of ideas, I just don't know how to express them right now.