Finding friends when no one is around
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I'm not a gregarious or outgoing person. I generally flounder helplessly in social situations, finding myself tongue-tied when trying to come up with that perfect rejoinder to the witty comment made by the life of the party. People usually find a way to crowd me out of that circle that invariably forms around the one or two live wires who seem to dominate the conversation and soak up all of the attention at parties and other social occasions. I find myself slinking off to a far corner where I pretend to be occupied with personal introspection. Sometimes a kind hearted soul will take pity on me and try to draw me out, only to give up when they discover that I am unable to carry my share of the conversational load without embarrassingly long pregnant pauses while I search desperately for something to say.
I'm not stupid. I'm not even of average intelligence. Among my peers, I rank in the top two or three percentiles of intelligence. That intelligence, though, seems to be narrowly focused and limited to the realms of mute cerebration. Don't get me wrong; in a classroom setting, I am invariably able to supply the answer to the teacher's question, or to explain at great length the underlying theory of or the root causes of the matter under discussion...