The Dilemmas of Group Vacationing

Okay, so something that you should know about me: I hate, more than anything in the world- AWKWARDNESS. Nothing like still in the same room as someone else and feeling the ever so slight awkwardness building with each tick of the second-hand click by, while the silence grows thicker. I mean, once you’ve reached that point (say around the 3 minute mark) of being in the same room as an individual and no one has said a word to the other, it’s either someone breaks the ice and tries their hand at striking up pitiful small talk (in my case it’s usually blurting out really stupid questions no one understands) or you both acknowledge the undeniable tension and continue in pretending one another are not sitting 3 feet away. It’s kinda like a social russian roulette- who can withstand the awkwardness longer before the other gets up and walks away or decides to be the grown up and break the silence. And then there’s me, I’ll usually decide to do one of two things 1. go on ignoring it, acting completely oblivious to the fact that there’s an elephant parading itself around the living room, eventually wondering if the person hates me or thinks I carry some deadly, contagious decease that they can only catch by entertaining conversation with me, or 2. I (rather bluntly) ask the person why things feel awkward or if it was just me who felt the ocean sized tension getting ready to over take our village of a friendship, then of course this little confrontation of mine seems to do everything BUT smooth things over. Rather with a wild look of confusion in their eye they deny everything and we go on with our awkward ways, this time no doubt in the lack of fusion we have going on.

So my current dilemma- four days into a seven day group vacation and the awkwardness between a friend of mine and I seems to be growing. Seeing as we’ve been acquaintances for about 4 years or so now and though it has mostly been long distance-ish and mostly know each other through other people, but for some reason in my overly positive working brain, I thought that since we currently live an hour away from each other and we did pretty much plan a vacation together then that would make us at the very least somewhat comfortable with each other. But no, there seems to be this underlying…well, awkwardness towards one another. Perhaps it’s the fact that everyone we meet while we’re out here thinks we’re (as one called it) a ‘Unit’ seeing as we’re from the same place and have come out for vacation together (yeah I can see their confusion), maybe I just weird him out, I mean, it’s been known to happen kids. Now the joke is for one of our hosts to make a comment how we’re not a couple each time she introduces us to yet another one of their friends.. although I do believe that’s simply making the situation worse.
In my trying to subtly break the icy of our once budding friendship I went ahead and bought his ticket into a local show we all went to. So I’m hoping somehow my gesture white-flagging the friendship boat might just move us from ‘awkward’ to ‘cautious’ acquaintances. OR my act of kindness might have been mistook as ‘hey, I’m in love with you‘ and misthinking that someday I’m hoping to birth his children rather than ‘I’m just trying not to act like a awkward bitch for reasons I don’t even know’, yeah, that wrong thinking could defiantly further the chance of possibly redeeming any chance of a friendship we once had.
Here’s option number 3: this whole thing is in my head. I could just be imagining each time we’re in a room alone together it feels as if the entire world is holding its breath trying not to make a sound as it exhales and that it’s not weird that we live an hour away from each other yet haven’t once had even a 5 minute conversation while we’re on vacation together. I mean this is quite possible, I have a wildly active imagination that so often runs rampid weather or not I like it. In the case a mix of the day dreamer in me mixed with the scars of insecurities from past friendships gone array.

One way or another I think it just might be getting to the point where I (as non awkwardly as possible) need to mention what I’ve noticed is brewing in the air, work on some good ol’ communication skills, and smooth the lines of acquaintances to friends running on their way. I just hate the current state of awkwardness, it crawls under the pale layers of my skin and burrows deep within my unusually positive heart.