Running into my former students in social situations; also, having prospective roommates over “to look at the apartment” (and knowing perfectly well that the real purpose of the visit is to scope out each other).
I had a roommate for about six months who was also a former student. Worst of all possible worlds.
Being expected to hold small babies-- they scare the crap out of me.
Meeting up with European friends and having American freindly-Euro kiss anxiety. Oh, crap, one peck or three? Alternate cheeks? Aiagh! Wait, am I in Spain or Belgium . . . I forgot how this works!
Strangers in small elevator. Acknowledge with small humor and smile, or stare at number lights?
Students in social situations or otherwise unexpected-- especially when I and another young prof or two go out on a bender and are served pitcher #4 by a current student whose name I, of course, can’t remember or who I busted from plagiarism or something.
Miami is essentially Cuba Lite. Everywhere else in the country, it’s acceptable to just shake hands when being introduced to people. Hugging is also fine if you’re meeting close aquaintances. But here in Miami, folks do the hug-and-kiss thing on the first meeting. Because I interact mostly with guys, I often do a lot of kissing of guys who I barely know.
I don’t mind the hugs, but the kisses–and the expectation of kisses–skeeves me out.
Having to hang out with someone’s close-knit group of self-absorbed boring friends. I’m usually ok for small talk but there’s nothing worse than having to sit with a bunch of people, who you barely know, ramble on about their weding plans or their country club application or, househunting or whatever bullshit they feel is so important they have to monopolize the conversation for 20 minutes. And because you don’t know anyone, you have to sit and pretend to be facinated while everyone appeases some bore and grin stupidly at their inside jokes. And god forbid you try and show interest by asking questions because they will then seem visibly annoyed they have to interact with anyone from outside their group.
Although I imagine everyone thinks THEIR friends aren’t like that…but they probably are.
msmith537, you made me think of another weird thing: When people “name drop”.
This happens a lot with my boss. He’ll be telling a story and instead of introducing the characters in it with something like, “this guy who does work on fish physiology at Stonybrook”, he’ll just say their name. Like I should know who this person is. Sometimes the person is relatively well-known (in our field), and sometimes they aren’t. To me, it reinforces the whole idea of a “old boys network”–where all the key players are buddy-buddy, and all the non-key players are on the outside. It also happens at conferences, when the speakers interject humor (often inside jokes) by making references to certain people in the audience. Everyone’s supposed to laugh and think to themselves, “Oh, that John Smith. He’s such a card!” Even though half the people in the audience don’t know who John Smith is.
Which brings me to the next awkwardness (what can I say…I’m full of them): When people aren’t introduced in face-to-face encounters. Like when you come over a friend’s house for a dinner party, and the host just deposits you in the living room where the other guests are waiting, with no introduction. You just stand there while everyone looks at you, wondering who the hell you are. Then you get brave and say, “Hi, I’m monstro” and everyone jumps in with their own introductions. You spend maybe five minutes trying to tease out all the ways the guests are related to the host.
You then realize that you’re not the only person who gets this treatment when subsequent guests also fail to get an introduction. The host may eventually realize their faux pas and apologize by belatedly introducing people–but by then everyone knows everyone else and the host just looks stupid.
How about when relatives want to kiss you, not on the cheek (which I also hate) but ON THE LIPS!? No, no, no. Unless I am considering having sex with you, there should be no lip contact. ugh. There are 2 women in my husband’s family who try this crap, and I always feel like a bitch for turning away, but…:shudders:. My dad also used to try this (he was never abusive or sexual towards me or my sister in anyway, so don’t get the wrong idea) and it completely icked me out.
Amen. This is a huge pet peeve of mine–so many people haven’t a clue on how to do a proper introduction, which is a shame: with a proper introduction a lot of the minlging/small talk stuff people are talking about hating gets much, much easier. I do not know why introducing people seems to be dropping away–I don’t mean the super formal process, but just the "A, this is my _________B from ______. B, this is my __________ A from _____________. [Insert some tidbit of common ground]. I mean, how hard is that? And it makes everyone have so much better of a time.
I have a group of friends that I go back to visit in my “hometown”. They are terrible about this, and even directly asking (many times) to be introduced to people made no impact. So now (among other reasons, but this is a biggie) I don’t go to big social events when I am there.
Running into my HUSBAND.
Actually, this has not happened in years since he now works in another nearby town, but when we lived in a smaller town every so often I would unexpectedly run into him in the grocery store or something, but worst was if we we found ourselves out for lunch with different groups of people at the same restaurant.
This is a man I can happily talk to for hours on any topic under the sun, but suddenly we’re reduced to …“oh! hi!”…“funny to see you here”…“having a good day?” “oh yeah, how about you?” “you have more than 8 items you know”