Social awkwardness is not a choice

Don't worry Mom, I'm sober.

So I just moved to Encinitas after living in Santa Barbara for seven years, and I gotta say that the people here seem so refreshingly and shockingly genuine and sure of themselves. I'm not used to it yet, and to be honest I just don't know how to interact with them. I have eons of experience in the service industry (you know, not to brag or anything.... You're jealous.), but I guess it was a whole different ball game in Santa Barbara, because we all just fake-faced each other and did our best to have as minimal contact between worker and customer as possible. Then, we'd move two inches to the left so we were partly shielded by a plastic plant and we'd talk shit about the customer we just wished a good night. "Did you SEE that snaggle tooth on table 39??" and "That old shitbag just snapped his fingers at me AGAIN!! I swear to God, if he does that shit ONE more time--"... you get the point. At my new restaurant, working the cash register feels more like I'm being animal-tested for the label of Socially Inept. The customers we get are typically environmentally-conscious, CARING individuals, and it SHOWS. You can't half-ass a response with these people. I'll never forget the lady who asked me if the turkey in the turkey sandwich was lunch meat. I'm meat-retarded, so I thought hey, it's meat and it's served at lunch. So, YES! She made a face like I'd ripped out her kidney and stuffed it up my nose just for laughs. So... NO. Apparently "lunch meat" is a mish-mash of animal-y parts that is blended together into a pearlescent mass and sliced for non-Encinitans to chomp on in ignorant bliss. (Feel free to call me out on the fact that I STILL don't know what I'm talking about.) My restaurant serves organic, hormone-free, sliced roasted turkey on its sandwiches, which pleased the lady and she forgave me for sounding like an idiot when I repeated forty times that I didn't understand her question.

And it's not just what they're buying that they care about. Encinitans care about YOU, their server. When they ask how my day is going and I answer by saying, "Would you like to eat inside today or out?" their faces fall at my brusqueness and they sadly set the menu down and Eeyore-slump away, stopping only once they're at the doorstep to look back and let me see that one silent tear that falls for my insincerity. I'm finding it SO HARD to shake myself out of robot-mode. One of the most unsettling differences (for me, anyway) is that the people around here aren't in a hurry. They just mosey on over from their afternoon yoga sesh looking for some sauteed tempeh and organic baby greens. These are the people who can call you "brother" and smile at you and you feel so incredibly honored by the title, even though you're a girl and it was kinda a weird thing to call you, come to think of it. And then they'll hit you with the kicker, their most potent form of unadulterated love and compassion and warmth: the eyes of Jesus. These people can stare into your eyes shamelessly for apparently ANY amount of time. There's no need for them to flit their gaze away nervously or blink like normal people or even to look with their eyes when getting money out of their wallets while simultaneously threading a needle and teaching sign language to that deaf chimpanzee over there. Encinitans' eyes have all evolved into warm pools of hope and whispered lullabies. Their pupils crook their pupil fingers at you and beckon you to sway like hula daisies in a back-and-forth dance of white light. My robot reflexes are not cut out for this.

I find it humorous (but only when I'm safe in the confines of my own home...now that I have one, anyway) that I, a person who excels in the art of Sucking at Social Interactions, am in a line of work that involves interacting with hundreds of people every day. In hindsight, I can see that I'm kinda screwed from the get-go because my brain doesn't care about being cool, and in fact my brain is a Harry Potter-loving, ghost-fearing fool of an organ who loses itself in daydreams every .5 seconds. It's not FAIR that that's the brain they're giving me to manage a restaurant.

A typical customer transaction when I'm working the cashier position enters the red-alert zone for extreme awkwardness in a matter of ten seconds. This is because I have a chronic humming disease that kicks in, oh, ALWAYS. The customer walks up to the register to see a glossy-eyed possible albino staring thirty-five degrees to the left humming Lady Gaga in somber tones with a zombie face vacant of all expression. He says "Hi..." in an I-want-to-order-food-but-am-worried-you-just-had-a-stroke kind of way. I am startled but am too lazy to visibly have a reaction, so I slowly turn to him and mumble into my chin that, sorry, I was humming and what would you like? He says, "Uh...wait what?" And I repeat the question, now determined to act like HE'S the weird one and I'm just there doing my job, taking those orders. He's then lost all trust in the situation, and we start talking at the same time, grunting intermittently at each other until one of us shouts out in pent-up angst (usually me) DO YOU WANT MUSTARD WITH THAT?!! (or him) BEANS GIVE ME GAS, CAN I GET A SALAD INSTEAD?!! There is an instant wave of relief when the order has been placed, and suddenly it's aaaaall good, we're just waiting on him to get his money, look at that he's getting it now, no worries, la la la. It's at this point that I am lulled into a sense of safety and the endorphins of achievement cause me to babble drunkenly like I've known the guy forever since we just competed against each other in register-battle. "Have you ever had one of those kombuchas?" I'll ask, and then carry on with, "I loooove kombucha. I think cuz it tastes a little bit like beer, but like magic happy beer that's good for you. My mom used to MAKE her own kombucha, you know. Yeah, I remember, when I was little I'd always wonder what the hell my mom was drinking cuz you'd see her fill her cup from this big urine-colored jar of liquid that had an alien-looking mushroom floating on the top. Aaaahh, so funny...." And at this point the man is walking away backwards, and now I'm angry because why is he leaving me now that we're best friends? I then frown at his obvious lack of people skills and rub vodka-smelling hand sanitizer on my fingers and forearms, humming "Bad Romance" softly to soothe my burned ego. Aaaaand... REPEAT PERFORMANCE FROM ABOVE.

I'm hoping that being around these fool-proof, flexible yogans will help me to have a better sense of who I am and how to communicate with others without feeling so terrifyingly aware of myself the whole time. *fingers crossed in eager anticipation* And if not, oh well, it'll give me something to write about in my blog.

Unrelated note: Listen to this song! "Brand New Shoes" by She and  Him. I heart it.


Second unrelated note: If you eat nutritional yeast, you should store it in a dark container. If it's stored in clear glass, the light destroys the RIBOFLAVIN which helps with the health of your skin and vision and energy metabolism!! It's all in Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet by Brenda Davis, R.D. and Vesanto Melina, M.S., R.D.

Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah! Roma-roma-mamaa! Ga-ga-ooh-la-la! Want your bad ro-o-mance!