I’m out in San Diego, at a conference I somehow convinced my adviser to let me go to even though I am not presenting nor displaying a poster, and I’m thinking that I should be more friendly.

I got up this morning for an 8am session, and on my way downstairs, I shared the elevator with a very nice-looking girl who was obviously also attending the conference (name badge, thick program book). We rode the entire way down in complete silence when it would have been so easy for me to have said “Going to the first session of the day?” and perhaps had made a friend. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to her; I was just too shy/scared/awkward. We walked out the elevator one after the other, and I purposefully slowed down my pace so that I could stagger myself with her and not have to awkwardly walk side-by-side and STILL not say anything.

Just now, I rode UP the elevator with a bunch of people (also with the tell-tale name badge), and one actually got off at my floor. We stepped out of the elevator one after the other, and at the T in the hallway, we both turned down the same way … leaving us, you guessed, walking awkwardly side-by-side in silence. He broke the silence, “Are you brain dead yet?” and I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn’t have to start the conversation to end the awkwardness.

In general, I think that I should just be more extroverted and have a phrase or two up my sleeve to pull out in those awkwardly walking silently side-by-side situations. Who knows? I may even make a friend or two.  And it’s not that I don’t WANT to talk to people … it’s just so hard to break the ice and say that one something to a complete stranger.  Even if s/he has a bright friendly smile and looks as if s/he would welcome the conversation.