Void If Detached

At church on Sunday, the sermon was about community and relationships and being part of a whole.

Timely words for someone who was just wrapping up an Introvert Tech Break.

The kids’ sermon used the analogy of a puzzle…how we are all individual pieces, but when you put us together we serve a greater purpose. If you look at just one piece, it has it’s own characteristics and features. When you add it to the puzzle, though, you realize it’s just one piece of a bigger picture.

In the main sermon, the pastor spoke of the importance of being open with other people. Extending a hand, learning a name, joining a group…all of these things help us to live fully. She kept bringing up the term “Void If Detached” and it struck a chord with me.

A lot of times, it’s just easier to be quiet, to shut myself up in the house and not deal with talking to people. I realize how horribly anti-social that sounds, but I don’t feel like I’m an anti-social person. I actually think I’m quite nice. I would even go so far to say that most people actually enjoy being around me. I can be a hoot in the right setting.

The right setting is one where I already know everybody and they know me pretty well, too.

When it comes down to it, I’m not good at the small talk. Idle chit chat is hard for me. Once I know someone, I feel at ease to speak my mind and let my Freak Flag fly.

Getting to know someone, on the other hand, does not come naturally to me. I’m awkward around people that I don’t know very well, and I think the awkwardness can sometimes come off as stuck-up-idness, disinterest, or apathy.

O.K. I admit it. Sometimes it actually is apathy, but that doesn’t happen very often. I swear.

My entire life, I’ve always been the one with only a few really close friends. I was friendly with people, I just wasn’t truly friends with them, if that makes sense. I wasn’t the go-out-and-party-girl, or the plans-every-weekend-girl. I was the stay-at-home-and-watch-TV-with-the-family-girl.

This post is starting to ramble so I need to rein it back in.  I guess my whole point is, that while I realize that personal connections are important, the number or the depth of those connections is never going to be for me what it is for other people. I will never be the party organizer or the hostess with the mostess. I will be the one in the corner that showed up with a friend because social situations freak them out a bit.

So, the next time you see someone that you think is being stand-offish or anti-social or detached or it drives me nuts when people think I’m rude, it might just be that they are nervous of doing or saying the wrong thing. Don’t write them off. They could end up being pretty awesome.