I dont suppose any of you would like to join the socially awkward society I am going to start?

[MumofTrioTrioIwanaTrioIwant1NW]

free membership Or is it just me?

Am annoyed at myself for being socially awkward (several instances today in company),

I do try thats the annoying thing I just dont seem to be able to be anything else! pah!

Please come cheer me up somehow

yep me too. I can SEE my (child-free) friends' faces glazing over and I just can't seem to stem the flow of verbal diarrhoea. Cringe.

Especially as my dd is only 7 weeks so she is very lovely and all but doesn't do that much. Pretty boring to other people.

And me. The thing is, its quite easy to start talking to another mum by mentioning your DC's. It moving on from that thats the problem. So i talk about the DC forever more.

I will help you. My friends think I am very aloof and socially skilled. I am in fact just quite deceptive.

Afternoons - is this MoO with a new name? Good for you!

btw in case anyone missed it......I NAME CHANGED!!! No longer am I to be me defined purely as my role or be identified my another person!! Go me!!

lol hully. yep. Did I go a bit overboard with the self-affirmation?

Aw, thanks AF , you've made my night.

I have to practice making my face be more approachable though - more than one person has told me I can look 'stern'. Doesn't help.

Certainly not. Be loud and proud, Afternoons.
Ok, so if you find you're getting stuck on dc, ask then if having dc is how they thought it would be. What did they expect? What dio they hope etc?

God, yes... not boring my childless friends with stories of my DS. Takes a conscious effort.

Take the particular (eg dc) and broaden out to the general..

(would like to join, but feeling a bit...ummm....awkward)

I stand there like a lump at social gatherings. I can deliver a lesson to a group of teenagers, but give me a group of school mums to make conversation with and I can't do it.

I used to go to toddler group and talk to nobody over the age of 3.

My problem is I am a bit of a Chandler Bing. My self-esteem hinges on making people laugh. I think I must really annoy quieter people. I do not have it in me to appear aloof. Hence I think I could be construed as squawky.

But enough about me.....

Those of you who feel backward in coming forward - are your DCs young? I found I lost an awful lot of confidence when mine were babies/toddlers - waiting at any moment to be caught out not knowing what I was doing with them?

< remembers to be socially-appropriate and ask questions >

My tip is this :

Do not compare your insides to other people's outsides. Get people on their own and then get to know them.

What about that thing where you see someone you kind of know walking down the street..I never know what to say.
Either cross the road or pretend i haven't seen them.
Oh dear..so rude.

hi lovely hully

I just want to throw myself down on the carpet and bang my fists and cry and feel really upset I am sooooooooooooooo sick of trying so hard and getting no where fast / feeling such a twunt.

I couldnt try any harder.

alternatively I could try to laugh at myself

Arghh! A prime example here! I've just tried about 5 times to answer your post mitochondria but I don't know what to say! Even here I can't do it!

Listen to Hully though mitochondria. She is a proper Guru!

What's not working Trio? Are people rejecting your overtures? If so, where?

HotSprocket - that happens to me a lot. I always meet people I kind of know and can't remember who they are!

I usually say hello and then hope they don't ask me anything that requires a knowledge of exactly who they are and how I know them.

I just dont FIT in, cant explain it, just side lined probably unintentionalluI, but I have to count my blessings I have a few pals locally not close close but enough to socialise with sometimes

This whole mum school thing is just like BEING at school hate it I am most likely just being hormonal am I?

I really think social awkwardness is one of these things that gets easier with age.

Yesterday I went to a conference where I only vaguely knew 2 people - and I was fine. I made small talk with strangers - something I would have been incapable of in my thirties. As you get older, you care less about other people's perceptions of you, and so you relax.

Not necessarily MumofTrioTrio. I don't fit in with the school mums. This is probably mostly because I rarely do dropping off or picking up, so they don't really know who I am.

MissMarjorie - my mum once told me that the reason no-one asked me to dance at discos was that I look "grumpy in repose". Thanks mum

MumofTrio are you pg?