By now you probably all know how much I love boot camp. Love it! I love the challenge of it, how (almost) every week I get a little bit better, a little bit stronger. But there is one aspect of it I still struggle with a lot, one that after almost a year of classes, I still have not made any progress on – and that’s the social aspect.
With the exception of the first session I took, and half of the last session, I have taken all of these classes without knowing anyone in the class. And that is totally fine with me! I’m not a person who routinely needs other people to do things with, and am fine to do things on my own – well, that’s not totally true, I usually like someone to go with me the first time, but after that I’m fine! So I almost always go to the gym by myself, go shopping by myself, I eat lunch by myself every day at work, etc.
But I hate it at Boot Camp! I hate how everyone makes friends but me. I hate how I sit alone, quietly, by myself, or purposefully show up late to class so I won’t have to sit alone, quietly, by myself. I hate that I’m the person who talks the instructor’s ear off just to have someone to talk to.
And what I really hate is that with my new instructor, we always have to do PARTNER WORK.
Oh my God. PARTNER WORK is just one step down from TEAM SPORTS, which is one step down from the 7TH CIRCLE OF HELL for me. And now every class leaves me feeling stupid and disappointed in myself. I either don’t have a partner and have to work with the instructor, or I do have a partner and I do so horribly and I can see them rolling their eyes and wishing they had gotten a partner who could actually, you know, do something. I am pretty ok most of the time, with my own shortcomings, and don’t mind working on them and through them, but I hate when those shortcomings are forced on other people. It makes me feel like shit.
So the partner work is a whole new level of sucking, but any of the social aspects of boot camp are killer for me. I still remember this session I took last summer, and on the last day it was clear that everyone was getting together at someone’s house to celebrate the end of class, and even the instructor was going, and I was very clearly not invited. Ouch.
I don’t know what it is about me, but there is something that people generally don’t like. I mean, I have friends and I know I’m a good person and funny and smart and relatively kind and all that. I’m not saying I suck. But there is something about me that generally gives people the IMPRESSION that I suck. People don’t like me right away – I suppose it’s probably a vibe I give off. I am actually terribly shy but not many people realize that so I guess I must somehow be twisting my shyness into an outward projecting of ... something else. Snobbiness or sullenness or something. I wish I knew what it was so I could fix it. (I used to blame my weight (of course! Weight is the perfect lackey to take the fall for all of our short comings!) but I don’t really have that crutch anymore.)
I don’t know why I’m posting this. I was thinking about it last night, and feeling a bit melancholy, and then some other stuff has happened at work today that also has me doubting myself. Basically it was write it all out or head downstairs for a piece of carrot cake. Ha ha! So I chose to write. And I apologize if this sounds whiney or overly-indulgent, I don’t mean it to be. I just hate that I’m so bad with new people, and I am, yes, disappointed that this is one of those things that losing weight didn’t fix.
Are any of you social or outgoing? Any tips for a pariah like me?
