Before I begin, please excuse my english, it’s not my first language.
So, I (17F) consider myself to be pretty socially awkward sometimes. As a kid, I was always moving from school to school because of my parent’s jobs but never had much trouble getting into small groups of friends, tho I was usually the left out one. I would normally begin the contact with people with things like “hey, what’s your name?” and other basic stuff like that. As I grew older, it became harder for me to do that but gladly I also stopped changing schools so much.
I think it’s important to say that I remember being told by my family that I’m rude or that I always have a bitchy face when I’m talking to people or just walking around the house, but I always brushed it off thinking that I was just being teased by them (and honestly, that only made me not wanting to see them even more lol).
That leads us to December of last year, on my friend’s birthday party. Once everyone was already leaving, we started gossiping about this little trip my school did only for those with good, consistent grades. I wasn’t invited, of course, but one of the girls who went to the trip was taking about what the boys said about everyone in our friend group. When it came to my turn, she started laughing saying that they told her I’m “too menacing” and that they were scared of talking to me.
I laughed, too, but I guess that stuck with me, so I went to some people I know, asking them if they were scared of me before we got to know each other. Not only most of the answers were yes, but I also got a LOT of exemples of times we weren’t close and I was weirdly rude to them. And, to be honest, I don’t remember most of what they told me.
Here are some of their stories/things they said:
1. When Bárbara asked if my name was X, I said yes and turned away without asking her name back. (I guess I did this because i already knew her name);
2. Samuel and Bianca said they were scared of talking to be because I look like the type of person who gets annoyed quickly;
3. When Bianca first met me, I had just dyed my hair ginger and she asked me if it was my natural hair color. I said no and, guess what? Turned away again;
4. When Maju asked for a piece of my chocolate, I said no and kept eating it without looking at her.
Looking back now, I can’t definitely remember times that I did things that probably looked really rude to some people, but I just never seem to get when I’m acting like that. I guess it’s just a natural response of my personality. Or even my face? my eyes? My brows? This one time in a spa saloon, I even had a brows stylist coming up to me saying that if I let her do mine, I wouldn’t get told that I look angry all the time. I just did that weird hamburger smile and kept hearing her talk about my face, but I couldn’t get that off my mind for the rest of the day.
I tried talking to my mom about this since everyone says I’m just like her, but we got into an argument because she says it wouldn’t be like that if I was more friendly. It’s not like I’m doing this on purpose!
How can I even fix this? I get super awkward when people I don’t know try to talk to me and I especially hate when they do so while I’m doing something else. Does anyone here have the same problem? I mean, there probably is, but how are you working this out?