Hey, I Just Met You, and I Am Crazy

"Sometimes, when I have a little left, I like to spray my hands and pretend I'm a robot." - Me talking about decorating cake with edible metallic spray about ten minutes into encountering a new human being.

I'm really bad at meeting new people.

No no, let me rephrase this: I'm really good at pretending like I know what I'm doing when I'm meeting new people at first, but I'm terrible at maintaining any sense of normality throughout the social situation. For instance, I'll start off seeming like a nice, normal person, and then only a few minutes in of talking to someone, sporadic flashes of crazy suddenly burst through the façade, like some sort of nervous reflex.

I visited a friend's house to play my first ever game of Dungeons and Dragons a few evenings ago- my character was a new addition to the campaign, and the group had already had two sessions of play. I already knew my friend of course, and I had already met her husband. It was the rest of the group I had to try to convince that I was 'cool'.

I had been talking like a nice, normal person to my friend's brother-in-law when the subject of what I'd used to make the cakes I brought silver came up (I'd sprayed them silver and gold like loot). Like a nice, normal person I explained how I'd done it. My friend's brother in law joked that he might end up looking like the tin man if he got any silver on him. And then, not at all like a nice, normal person, I cracked that remark about pretending like I'm a robot out.

At another point, we started discussing about how strictly we have to stick to our character's alliances and personality, and then ended up with a philosophical statement about how the inevitability of how our characters can and can't act could be a metaphor for life. And hastily and awkwardly added "Or not..."

During the actual game, I was absent-mindedly stacking the die up in a colourful tower. Another member of the group and pointed this out, amused. I felt a silly crooked grin appear on my face. "I like stacking things, stacking things is fun."

*Facepalm*

There were plenty of other moments like these throughout the evening, made worse by the fact that I was also trying to learn the rules of the game on the fly, stay in character and remember everyone's real and in-game names at the same time; and as the game commenced, I felt myself getting quieter and quieter. The group was fantastic- everyone was very welcoming and had the same cheeky, slightly avante-garde sense of humour as I did- but I was terrified of accidentally taking the joke too far, or stepping over the mark as the newbie. I started out being super friendly and slightly hyperactive, but by the end of the evening I must have seem very subdued, and perhaps even a little aloof in my awkwardness.

I used to be so painfully shy I wouldn't be able to talk to new people at all. Now I'm much better at pretending that I'm confident and at toning down my eccentricity to begin with, but this sort of suppression results in my eccentricity forcing its way out like water spewing from a cracking dam. Honestly, I'm not sure which one is worse.

Thankfully, the people that have stuck by me after these awkward first moments are both awesome and just as nuts to boot, so I needn't worry too much. After all, life is all about finding people with the same type of crazy as you, and those people become your friends.