I have to meet someone new today. Well, technically, xe’s not “new” – I’ve met hir once before. Still, not long enough to figure out hir rules, so new.
And my words are being assholes.
And this meeting is important, because it might be a job.
But it’s a new type of job, one I’m unfamiliar with the rules of.
But I know I can do it. Because it’s basically teaching through writing and I’m good at that because I’ve done it before. My boss gets me to write up user’s manuals since I’ve got a good memory for all the things that gave me trouble when I was just learning how to do something, and when I teach I tend to personalize it so instead of saying, “Don’t do that,” I say, “Don’t do that unless you want to suck fluid into your line and then spend the rest of the day cleaning it out and have to put your experiment on hold and learn how to clean out a Schlenk line… it’s a pain in the bum. So make sure you do this instead, so that doesn’t happen.”
And people learn better when they know why they’re supposed to do stuff. And I explain why, which is why I’m a decent teacher.
So I know I can do this job. If I can get it. And not get myself screwed over for it. Because Person is a business person and I know xe’s fairly nice but business people are trained to get themselves the best deal possible. And I have to social-negotiate. Eep.
So… anyway. Fairly nervous.
Because I’m scared I’ll mess it up.
Because what people in general don’t get is that I’m not clumsy at social because I’m anxious, I’m anxious because I’m fucking hopeless at meatspace social and through hypervigilance body monitoring and social flow chart following and suchlike, I can make myself look just clumsy.
But right now? I’m down four tools: I have no social flow chart for this, I have no person-specific rules, I have nobody’s lead to follow, and my words are on the fritz.
Halp.
(and don’t tell me to do calming shit because calming shit is bad because I need the extra awareness anxiety brings. It’ll help me pick up on stuff like “Oh, he’s extending his hand, I guess I should shake hands.” Anxiety for me in meatspace social is not maladaptive, even if it is unpleasant)
ischemgeek 