All posts tagged: Nerves

You’re Not Alone if You Feel Nervous About Dating

Published by

Something really cool has happened over the past few years. I started this blog in 2013. It began as a place where I could think through pain points I’d had while trying to date as I also dealt with anxiety. One of my mantras when I thought about starting this blog was, “I can’t be the only one.” As you guys have shown me, I’m not. And I have the evidence to prove it. This site is powered via WordPress. There are thousands of people who find my blog via search engines online (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc). For 95% of these searches I’m unable to see the words people typed in that led them to this site. But for the other 5% I can see what someone searched for. There are no other identifying factors for the search terms, so there’s no way to know the person’s age, gender, hometown, etc. Yet this anonymity makes me feel all the more connected.  And it’s one of the coolest things. In 2016 so far here’s a sampling …

I Hung Out With a Friend While He Tried to Work Up Courage to Tell a Girl She Was Pretty and MAN It Was Stressful

Published by

We hovered around him like buzzards surrounding a fresh carcass. “Just get in and get out,” Friend 1 shouted at him. “It’ll be over so fast!” Friend 2 added. “Come on, don’t chicken out,” Friend 3 contributed. “If you don’t do this then you’re dead to me!” Friend 4 screamed, spittle flying from their mouth and also I should mention Friend 4 was me. We were out at a bar for our friend’s 24th birthday. The rest of the group, myself included, had a mean age that fell in the 30 – 35 age bracket. However, we’d all met and bonded at the same dark, cramped bar here in Seattle, all rooting for the same English soccer team. They are friendships formed over shared hatreds of opposing teams and shared beers at 6am kickoffs. Our spring chicken of a friend, the one now turning 24, will sometimes talk about crushes with us at the bar, girls he might find cute or intriguing. We tend to grill him, digging furiously through his hesitant collection of information, foraging …

My Anxiety Was a Third Wheel on My Honeymoon

Published by

“I know I should be Zen and look at my nerves as a symbol of sensitivity and I should be grateful that we’re even here in the first place, but sometimes I get so MAD at myself.” I sat in the airport terminal, Jared waiting patiently next to me, as the loudspeaker overhead announced they were boarding rows 1 – 20. It was almost midnight and we were about to get on our plane to fly back home. We’d just spent a week in Hawaii on our honeymoon and my insides were churning like the ocean in the middle of a squall. My anxiety was pitching and rolling. The last thing I wanted to do was walk onto that airplane. And I was furious. No matter how much I’m aware of my patterns, my habits, and the way my nerves affect my physical body, it can still betray me despite my cognitive awareness. Like, I “know” there is nothing to be anxious about and yet my digestive track and stomach and muscles refuse to acknowledge this. …

One of the Weirder Moments of Eye Contact I’ve Had Recently…

Published by

Eye contact can be challenging for me sometimes. I know it’s important, I know it makes people feel heard and connected, but damn it be awks sometimes. It’s incredibly intimate and makes you feel seen. It reminds you that, hey, you are right there. That’s you. A good friend of mine got married this past summer and after the ceremony she pointed something out to me I hadn’t realized before. “You have to maintain eye contact for a long time. Like, way too long,” she said, a fellow introvert who probably is as much of a fan of eye contact as I am. I’d never thought of this. Over the past few years I’ve been to a lot of weddings. A lot. If weddings were Cheetos and I was pouring myself a bowl for the past two years that bowl would be full. You know what I mean? Cheeto metaphor? Jared and I have attended so many weddings we foolishly thought planning a wedding would be easy. We thought it would be as breezy as a sailboat on a …