A-typical behavior

I've been acting rather strangely lately. Well, I often act in a manner which people find strange, but I mean I've been behaving in a manner that is different from how I generally behave. I would say that I am a relatively friendly, outgoing person. However, I also have shy streaks to me and I have a hard time reaching out to people. For example, when in a setting with new people I'm often rather quiet, wait for others to open up conversation, don't take the initiative to get in touch later or ask people if they'd like to hang out again. I even have a hard time doing it with people that I like and have known for a while - like with people from work or my swim team or something. I actually rather agonize over it sometimes. In my mind I think "Oh, I really like Jim, he seems cool, it'd be great to hang out sometime. But what if he doesn't want to? I'm also kinda busy, I don't know when it would work, I don't want to bother him 'cause he is pretty busy too. I'll just wait to see if he suggests something." And so it becomes this big "thing" in my mind, which then makes it that much harder and more agonizing!

Quite silly. I've noticed it before and commented on how silly it is.

So, the new behavior: I'm reaching out to people frequently and easily. This is only the first week of school (massage school yeah!) but another student was telling me she likes to swim and so - without even thinking about it! - I said there was a gorgeous resevoir (the kind you can swim and boat in and such) about ten minutes from my house and did she want to go swimming sometime? I also saw that another student had a bike helmet and so I asked if she rode and would she want to go for a ride sometime and we're going on Sunday! And then, my BIG triumph - I was out riding yesterday evening just trying to start to get a sense of what is around and where one might ride and so on and I saw another person out riding. A total stranger. A total stranger who was clearly in the middle of his ride - and if one is concerned about "bothering" people this would be a good example of doing just that. Never-the-less, not only did I wave and such, but I flagged him down so I could interrogate him on riding groups in the area, places to ride and so on. We talked for about ten minutes by the side of the road and I thorougly destroyed his interval training, but he was quite friendly about it.

So there you have it, very a-typical behavior on my part



"And you uploaded this image, because... ??" I'm sure that's what you are thinking. What does a cute little donkling have to do with acting differently?? Ummm.... nothing, it just makes me happy. This is just my favorite picture from India. This donkling (the Brooke-technical term for a young donkey) came across my path while trekking. He walked right up to me, turned to the side for the lovely profile shot and gave me the cute little pose you see here. Every time I look at it it just makes me squeal with delight.