Misunderstandings

This is a story from when I was 14 and oh man it is worth telling.

I’ve always had some social anxiety, but when I was a kid and a teenager it was so much worse. If someone misunderstood something I did or said I almost never spoke up to correct them. At the time, there was a boy I was talking to that I had a small crush on but I wasn’t going to act on it much other than texting him. I wasn’t exactly looking for a boyfriend at 14. But I did have fun getting to know him a little and joking around when we saw each other at school.

Around then the 8th grade dance was coming up and I had planned a fun evening with my friends. We’d all get dressed up and go dance in our schools’ cafeteria/auditorium to hits like the Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling.” It was gonna be a night to remember.

One day when I was texting that boy I mentioned the dance and asked if he was also going. He said something along the lines of no, he wasn’t going because he didn’t have anyone to go with. I replied with these exact words “well I’m going and I don’t have anyone to go with.”

If you’re like me, that just meant that you can just go to the dance without a date and still have fun because all of 8th grade will be there and we all know some people. However, he did not take it this way.

Next thing I knew he replied “yeah I’d love to go with you.” I completely froze. I didn’t know what to think or how to respond. I called fir my mom, she came into my room and I told her what just happened. She laughed so hard.

Like me, she knew I couldn’t just say “oh no that’s not what I meant” so now here I was with an accidental date to my 8th grade dance that I had already made plans for with my friends. At first I told her it’s not funny. But as she stood there laughing her ass off, I realized just how funny the situation really is.

I mean, this is the kind of stuff you see in sitcoms or skits. And yet here it is happening in real life. Then I started laughing with her. I think this was a pivotal moment in my younger years and why I think it’s important to learn to laugh at this kind of thing.

Sweating the small stuff doesn’t do anything good for you, stress is scientifically proven to be unhealthy. Of course there are times when laughing is an inappropriate response, but maybe laughing off the small stuff can be a good way to cope with this type of stress. I know that as soon as I started laughing that night, I didn’t stress about that situation ever again.

And now it really is just a hilarious story.