New Friends

I always knew that I suck at making new friends. I cannot small talk, am paranoid about saying/asking the wrong things and, sometimes, am simply not that interested in meeting new people. I much rather hang out with old friends: people that I knew like the back of my hand, people that I knew for sure what they thought about me, what they responded to and what they could and could not talk about. With new people, it's all just too up in the air. For the past two weeks I've been constantly reminded of this weakness of mine. I meet new people in the halls, around campus and near my dorm but I tend to keep it to "hello! You're done class?" or "Hey! How's it going" and then hurry to my next destination without really paying attention to their response.

After almost a week of online tv in my room day in and day out, I was ready to come out of my shell today.

Armed with fresh knowledge from How to Small Talk from eHow.com, I decided to step out of my room and joined the very noisy and crowded potluck that was going on in the kitchen, two rooms down. Of course the first attempt wasn't that successful. My unfortunate chatting partner (the first somewhat familiar face that I saw) and I quickly ran out of conversation topics and I was left pretty much alone. I tried again. Luckily for me, the second girl was MUCH more talkative and all I really had to do was ask her questions and say "uh huh" or "right, of course". Soon, there was a little group of us all standing and laughing and having a great time (me included). And I got myself an invitation to view the season premiere of "America's Next Top Model" with some of the girls next week.

There. My first, whole-hearted small-talking-making-new-friends experience.
Must be the bravest thing I've done yet here in Ningbo.

Currently listening: 小步舞曲 - 陳綺貞