It's only awkward if you make it awkward.

We hear people say stuff like this all the time. It's only awkward if you make it awkward.
OH REALLY. I have a few things to say about about that, so trust me. I'mma drop some knowledge about awkward.

First item of business. It is completely mindblowing how applicable awkwardness is in any situation. Strange enough, the situation could permit little to no opportunity for awkwardness to poke its freakin weird looking self in, but it will find a way.

Instance one. You are at a party or social gathering, whatever, and the person you are with is the primary invitee if you will. Holy cow. In instances like this it's like you are standing in a Barcelonian street clad in brilliant shades of red during a bull run. The bulls being the awkward, stay with me. It looks as though the results could be disasterous. BUT. There are of course opportunities to combat the bulls. You have a choice here. You can either decide to be uber awkward,crash and burn and just pray that your friend introduces you and doesn't go off randomly leaving you to fend for yourself in this room full of bloodthristy leeches OR. you can choose to introduce yourself to whomever your friend is talking to, in a suave supa cool way. It's all in confidence. That is obstacle one. Your next obstacle of course, is how you are recieved. Hopefully your friend is awesome and has other cool people beside you that they hang with, because if you make a wise crack or try to be witty and the friend doesn't dig it you are slipping down that slope with record speed. Once again a recovery is possible. Get to a point where what this persons' negative reaction is, will not phase you. Find another person. Now you can usually pick these people out. They will look awkward. All by themselves. Probably abandoned, possibly like yourself. Try to strike up conversation if that crashes and burns let them know it was nice to meet them and you are outta there, and on to the next one. Now. You've found someone and you've had a fairly decent convo. you get to a lull. ASK THEM ABOUT THEMSELVES. it never fails. People LOVE to talk about themselves. promise. Ask things you really want to know. be interested.
Awkward situation avoided. You just roundhouse kicked awkward in the crotch :)



Alright. Instance two. You are held hostage on public transit or in class. Now this really isn't all that bad. All you have to do is talk to the person next to you. Not intrusively, especially if you can tell they are a closed or more conservative person. If they aren't responding, or pretending that you don't exisit you can always be a smart alec and make some passive aggressive comment about being too cool to talk to people. Which makes them feel like a mega tard and it is not on you anymore. You of course can always be open, if you are hard headed.

Instance three. Ever noticed looks you may recieve? Perhaps because you are wearing a witty shirt or bright colored shirt or have an awesome outrageous color in your hair. I've decided not nice people don't like color. The way to make this hardly awkward situation better is to just smile or look at them with a sort of anticipation like,' did you have something to say?' in a non threating way of course.

Those were situational potential awkwardness avoiders. Naturally we are faced with things like this on a daily basis and the awkward level is hopefully low. Would one not think that its particularly enjoyable to be placed in situations like this right? Well we also have control to an extent of awkward. If you know there is going to be a high likelyhood of awkward would you not just avoid that situation? Perhaps you KNOW if you go to a party that your ex will be at after he gets off work or something and you know you will not be able to handle it, wouldn't you avoid it at all costs? THEN DO IT. If you don't care or think it is humorous, like many fellow smart alecs agree then go!

That being said, i still have to get a few more things out of the way. Have you ever been in a situation that isn't necessarily awkward but is teetering toward it and someone else says, 'wow that was awkward!'? Far out people that is one of the sentences in the english language that should not be used. It's close to the sentence 'oh i thought you were pregnant, you know you sure look it.' really?! Really? Ted. Come on.

And my last grievance with awkward is how it is spelled. AWKWARDLY. kinda like the word abbreviation if ya know what i mean. Far out.

Anyway. The common theme appears to be, to avoid being awkward, DON'T BE AWKWARD. Just talk to people! Be confident, be brave and hard headed. That is the trick.