versus Social Awkwardness

So there I was, standing around at a party with some friends just talking and generally having a good time when I notice something.
“Hey, that’s a nice necklace,” I say to my friend who was trying to untangle some of her long hair from said jewelry.  “Is it new?”
“Nope,” she says, “I’ve had it for a few years now.”
“Oh,” says I, trying to remember the last time I saw her with it.  Nothing comes to mind.

“Well, if he didn’t notice it by now at least we know Gabe wasn’t staring at her chest all day,” chimes in my buddy, causing a chuckle to ripple through the group of us, including me.  Now, up to this point I’ve been mildly chastised and razzed but there has been no real embarrassment.  Most people probably would have laughed it off and started a conversation about the local sports team and their win/loss record and the chances of the playoffs.  Others might offer to go get everyone more drinks in the hope that by the time they return everyone had already forgotten the minor faux pas.  A smaller few – those who tend to panic easily - might divert the flow of the dialogue by pointing out the window then cry out, “Look!  Bigfoot is keying your car!” trusting blindly in the ability of sasquatch vandalism to occupy the attention of everyone while they escape.  These are all valid and understandable responses found in intelligent and well-adjusted people.  But this is me we are talking about – I wish I could have thought of that Bigfoot diversion on my own – so naturally, I messed it up.
“I noticed her necklace as soon as she walked in!” I say with a smile, pointing right at the most buxom of our friends who was wearing a very nice, elegant, diamond studded heart hanging from a delicate silver wishbone chain.  Yeah, I noticed that immediately.  Everyone was looking at me looking at her chest…er…necklace.  Her boyfriend didn’t look happy.  Her boobs looked awesome, though.  I might have been better served by just bluntly stating, “Hey, you’ve got killer cleavage!  Way to go!”  At least I might have mitigated some of the creepiness factor.  But there I was, wallowing in the midst of awkward silence.
I know there must be more people like me out there – socially inept goobers that can kill any conversation in six syllables or less.  Using the advanced techniques I learned in Basic Statistics 101, I’ve calculated there are at least 7 of us.  Technically, there were 7.35 people as socially inept as me, but I dropped the .35 because I was getting freaked out by the thought of what .35 of a person would look like (It’s just a head with two legs sticking out of its neck and 3 fingers wiggling behind its one good ear.  It had a wonderful singing voice, though…).  Anyway, I thought maybe this could be my chance to give something back to the community by coming up with various methods to help avoid those horrible awkward silences.
Note: These techniques have been laboratory tested in a thirteen week double-blind clinical trial.
Note to the note: I don’t know what “laboratory tested in a thirteen week double-blind clinical trial” really means, but I remember they said it on an episode of House once so I figure it’s applicable here.  In case you really need to know, these techniques were developed while I was in my PJs sitting at my desk.

Method 1:  Know your audience.  That’s right, think of your friends – or coworkers, teammates, fellow inmates, whatever – as an audience; meaning, be prepared to entertain them!  If you are socially inept, it is highly unlikely these people are hanging around you simply because they “like” you, they are expecting you to provide some sort of amusement to them even if that means laughing AT you, not with you.  But that’s not the point here – you probably don’t even realize they can’t stand you anyway, I know I don’t – the point is what do you do to make them laugh?  You need a skill, a talent, some kind of gimmick that draws attention away from your complete lack of personality!  And that is where knowing your audience comes in.
Example:  You’re at the office Christmas party and your coworker is so drunk she trips and spills her drink on you and it soaks the front of your pants.  Everyone is laughing, and you laugh along with them because for this brief instant you are included in the hilarity.  “Whoa, buddy,” says the resident loud-mouth and self-appointed jokester, “looks like you got a little trouble with the plumbing, huh?”  Everyone laughs again.  This is it, your chance to shine, your opportunity to let everyone know how clever you are.  Instead, you let these words escape your stupid mouth:
“It’s okay, I like it when my crotch is soaked!”  Not even you know how that was supposed to be funny, but you said it anyway and the claws of awkward silence begin sink into the mood of the crowd.  What do you do to prevent this?  Do you:
A) Make balloon animals
B) Pretend you are a robot and declare your motherboard has fried
C) Bust a move (aka cutting the rug…I think…) in the Break-Dance family
D) Bring up the stock-market and your potentially failing 401k.
The correct answer is obviously (D).  You are at an office Christmas party!  With drunk people!  There are no kids around to enjoy your meticulously crafted balloon animals!  And doing the robot?  These people probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between that and your everyday persona!  Never try dancing unless you have taken two years of professional training, which hopefully by this time has ingrained something that resembles rhythm into your limbs, or you have been possessed by Gene Kelly.  So, that leaves us with (D) as the only option left and it works.  These are your coworkers!  Most often all they care about is money or money related things and even if they don’t know the first thing about investing they will always be willing to tell you what you’re doing wrong with your money.
Phew, crisis averted!

Method 2: Intimidation.  This method takes a lot of work on your part to pull off.  You need to be able to not flinch or cringe or lose control of any body fluids (tears, excessive sweat, drool, urine,etc.) and speaking from experience, that is so hard to do sometimes.  Also, you must have either very large muscles that can ripple on command or a dead-eye stare.  Let people know that, yeah, you just said something inconceivably stupid…what are they gonna do about it?  Just be aware, this method might feel like awkward silence while you’re implementing it because, well, it is awkward, but hopefully at the end you are not feeling weird…everyone else is.
Example:  In a curious turn of events your best “friend” invites you to a party he’s having at his place.  People are not totally ignoring you and more than one person of the opposite sex (just in case one of those 7 people is a girl, I’m trying to be gender neutral) has made eye contact with you.  Over the course of three hours, you’ve infiltrated a conversation ring and you’ve not been asked to leave.  You’ve even laughed with them for the last 30 minutes.  Then, inexplicably, someone asks you a question, “So, how long have you lived in the area?”  It’s a completely innocuous query, designed to find out nothing more devious than a time frame, but the fact that it has been addressed to you causes a misfire in the synapses between brain and tongue, completely disabling your ability to speak.
“Six,” is all you can say before you freeze up, nothing more will come out.  People stare at you expectantly, waiting for some sort of qualifier.  Then they start giving each other odd looks.  But this is precisely where method 2 comes in handy.  Stare at the questioner.  Don’t blink.  Don’t shift about, wring your hands, or work moisture back in your mouth.  Keep staring until they think that perhaps you didn’t say something stupid, but rather something so clever they just didn’t get it.  If you can, give them a small smile; don’t bare your teeth, though, as that can be construed as a threatening gesture, a simple curving of the lips will suffice.  Only break eye-contact to stare at someone else that was about make a comment about your lack of sense.  Soon, people will either be so confused or uncomfortable they will bring up something else and not talk to you the rest of the night, which, lets face it, is what you really wanted in the first place.  I know I just want to go back home and play some Tetris!

Method 3: Hypnotism.  Yeah, this one can be rather difficult to pull off because most forms of mind control require a very strong personality and a lot of self-confidence.  Those are two traits not often found in the socially inept.  But, since most of us who fall in this category are geeks - ergo wants to be a Jedi - I felt it was appropriate to include this as a valid technique.  I’m not 100% sure how to do this myself but I can tell you with total confidence all you need to do is widen your eyes so far they pop out of your skull a little bit, then pull it back a notch, and do whatever hand gesture that feels natural to you but conveys to all who see it that, yeah, I can control your brain.
Example:  You are stuck in a very crowded elevator.  You just ate 5 extra spicy burritos for a snack.  Your bowels do their job to perfection and before you can even suspect something might be amiss down there the whole 4 x 4 closet is filled with your own methane.  And its not like you can hide it either as it made so much noise even you thought something achieved Mach 3 in your jockeys.  Everyone is staring at you and the air is so thick, violence is the only logical outcome.
So, you turn around and pop your eyeballs at some unsuspecting gagging individuals, waggle your fingers at them.  Soon, they are farting like the flatulence machines their bodies really are, taking all the pressure off you.  In fact, you release a bit more of that pressure your lower intestines had been saving for the fourth floor.  Ahhh…now if only you had a light saber…

Method 4: Bribery.  This is at once the easiest and hardest of all the methods because all it requires is that you have money.  Do something dumb?  Screw it, throw a wad of $20s at them and keep going.  Just be sure you ask “Are you a cop?” before any money changes hands.  Misunderstandings are very common when dealing with the socially inept and you don’t want to get to know Big Willie in cell block C unless you can disable a man using only your left pinky finger.  I don’t have any concrete facts to back this theory up but I more than suspect the concept of Trust Funds were created by the parents of socially inept children who couldn’t master any of the above techniques.  This created a whole new breed of idiot because these individuals were insulated from their own stupidity by five inches of cash wrapped around them.
Example:  You just took the shrink wrap off your own high school diploma that cost your parents more than $10,000 (they were considering going for the cheaper model, but at $8000 you would have to live with them until you “graduated” at 20.)  You heard somewhere that Harvard has even better diplomas – made from real diplomats – and it might be a good idea to get one of those.
“Can I get one of your degrees, please?” you ask the admissions clerk.
“Uh…,” they say as they cock an eyebrow, looking you up and down.  You think they are hitting on you but fail to notice they are slowly backing away as though from a crazed chipmunk  “Why?”
“I dunno.  I just want one.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“You’re supposed to do something with it?  Neat!  Think I can get two?”
“Oh god…  What’s your IQ?”
“Green”
“Of course it is…what did you get on your SATs?”
“SATs?  Oh, those are numbers for my Trust Fund, right?”  You hand the clerk your bank statement because your father scribbled the letters S A T on it in green crayon (he knew how much you liked green things).  The clerk smiles and moves closer.
“Welcome to Harvard!”
“Yay!”
Please, understand I’ve got nothing against Harvard, I merely picked it because it’s very late at night and I forgot what those other hoity-toity schools are called.  It has nothing to do with the rejection letter I got from them in 1997, so don’t even think of accusing me of being bitter.  Why my college essay wasn’t good enough, though, you’ll just have to ask one Mr. Dean of Admissions (I hope he was teased in junior high for having a name like that!) for that answer.
So there you have it!  Four fool-proof methods for fool-proofing yourself!  If you are one of the truly afflicted people I was hoping to help then you have my deepest sympathies and condolences.  There is no cure for social ineptness, and there probably never will be.  Because its not really a disease or anything.  There’s no real funding for research.  There could be, I guess, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for it.  Yeah…so…that’s it…you can stop reading now
…this is awkward…