Week 0 Introduction
I inwardly groan in annoyance at the very idea of introducing myself to new people. I want to say that my reasoning behind this visceral reaction is because I suffer from social anxiety. At the most serve, people that suffer from social anxieties wish they could leave the comfort of their own homes to interact with people. At the tamest, social anxiety sufferers wish they could get through a simple introduction without stuttering through their own name, and without sweating profusely in embarrassing locations that show through their clothing. Thankfully, social anxieties are not a problem I suffer from aside from being a little socially awkward because I'm shy and introverted. Complaining about how introductions are annoying seems to be in bad taste when compared to the people that can't do it at all. Does that make my reasoning behind why I find introductions annoying any less valid? Maybe, but it doesn't stop me from feeling that, even if introductions are a necessity, the generic pleasantries of an introduction are meaningless and pointless.
Meaningless and pointless might be a bit harsh. We, as people, meet the important people in our lives through introductions. Even when we are babies, we are introduced to our parents by a nurse or doctor, so there is a meaning and point to it all. The majority of the people we introduce ourselves to don't become a part of our lives, though. We are just exchanging pleasantries, and that is the part I find annoying. For example, in a week, I'm going to be sitting in a college classroom, full of people that are mostly drastically younger than me, and the professor is going to force us to talk to our neighbor about ourselves as if we are going to really remember the random person that sat next to us for a day. Not only will I have to go through this inane ritual once, but I'll have to do it twice. Not once have I made a friend or acquaintance through classroom introductions.
Despite hating the ritual of introducing myself to a random person because the professor wants to learn our names, it makes me wonder if there is another reason why I hate going through these motions. Usually, in situations like these, the professor asks us to tell one another "something interesting" about themselves. I find it interesting that the moment I hear those words, everything that I find even remotely interesting about myself (which honestly isn't much) suddenly packs a bag and runs out of my head as if it never existed.
"What do you like to do for fun?" A random college student sitting next to me asks.
"Uh, well..." I say, but unbeknownst to me, photography had all ready packed its bag and flew the coop. "What does fun mean again?"
It is all downhill humiliation from that point on.
Okay, maybe it isn't quite that bad.
There is one thing that I hate more than introductions, and sadly the two go hand in hand: goodbyes.