Thursday, March 12, 2015

Hello Doom

Not all of my Dooms are going to be about death and destruction.  Some are strictly about humiliation which, for me, might as well be death and destruction because humiliation makes me want to crawl under the proverbial rock and die.

So what does Hello Doom mean?  It doesn't mean "hello doom, how are ya doin'?".  It's a doom, I don't have to be polite to it. Besides, dooms are assholes.  They're everywhere, everybody has them, and they're usually full of shit.

No I'm actually referring to saying "hi" to people.  Yeah, really.  It's a doom for me.  You see, I get anxious very easily and when I'm anxious I start stuttering which is freakin' humiliating.  Meeting new people or even saying "hi" to people in the street is enough to get the stutter machine gear up and start turning.

But what's worse than actually stuttering?  Being afraid I'm going to stutter.  I CAN'T WIN.

And it makes me want to get swallowed up by the earth and disappear.

Here's a quick but effective example.

I was helping a friend deliver art to a gallery in Toronto this one time.  Conversation was happening around me but I was in the background quite happily in my own world being inconspicuous.  All of the sudden the gallery owner/manager/whatever/ looks at me, holds out his hand, and says, "Nice to meet you.", with a smile.

Sounds normal and friendly right?

Not to me!

My heart starts pounding, my brain goes blank, and all I could muster blurting out was, "NICE!" while I shook his hand.

I'm thinking "oh my god, did I just do that?" while I looked into his eyes and saw definite confirmation that yes, indeed, I just did that.  He was looking at me like I was on a timer ready to explode in his gallery.

I was certain that I would die of humiliation right there on the spot.  I would fall over, maybe take some art with me on the way down and just lay there dead.  My obit would read, "Here lies Amanda.  Her last word was NICE!".

Nice.

*sigh*




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