Stopping By To Say Hi - As Promised

Ok. Back on January 7th, I promised to do a post about “Stopping by to Say Hi.” Here is that post…

On January 7th (and today too which reminded me I needed to write about this) I went out for lunch. I’m one to usually bring a lunch or in many cases just not eat a lunch, but I was particularly hungry both of these days… On both occasions, I ran into fellow co-workers of my previous employer.

Now some of you may or may not know, but I switched jobs back in March of ’07 and left the company on what I would consider good terms. I worked there and enjoyed my job, but there just wasn’t really anywhere for me to go as far as career wise so I left and took another position with another employer. There. You’re caught up enough to understand the story… (To be honest, you probably could have understood the story without me telling you that, but we’re all better off now anyways.)

What do you say to a former co-worker? “Hey! How’s it going? I love my new job and I’ve gotten substantial raises in pay and been promoted already in the first eight months I’ve been there! Have a great day!” That doesn’t seem right… Not right at all.

First thing to note is that I’m terribly introverted. I like making personal bonds with people at work as long as they’re really not personal. Let me give you an example. Person A that sits in a cube next to me has a couple kids and a wonderful spouse. I take time to ask Person A how things are going with each of them and enjoy hearing stories about them. Fine. When Person A brings their children or spouse by the office after their lunch break to meet me, I want to crawl into a hole and not come out until I’m certain they’re gone. Weird huh? I like to hear about stories and connect with people in a professional manner, but when it comes to truly personal relationships, I kind of suck.

Anyways, when I met my former co-workers, all of which I truly enjoyed working with, I just simply chose to ignore them. Didn’t make eye contact, didn’t acknowledge their presence one iota. Lame-O! WTF? This is one thing about me and my personality that really pisses me off. I mean, where the hell ARE my social skills? I didn’t have any problem talking with them when I worked with them… Now that I see them in a public setting, I just freeze up. AAARRRGGGHHH! I’ve always done it and probably always will.

Some would say, “Come on now Tiger! It’s just something you have to work on and you’ll get better at it!” The crappy thing about this is, well, I really don’t want to… I’m really thrown by this mental block I seem to have.

My honest to goodness worst fear is the fear of being alone. I hate being alone. I hate spending the night at my place alone with no one around. Its during times when I’m alone that I’m the least productive. The thought of my wife getting off work in 15 minutes and coming home is enough to get me up off my behind and motivated to do something. Other than that, I’m really pretty lame… This fear of being alone is doubled by the fear of being rejected. Is that why I have such a hard time finding and making friend? I don’t know. That’s a question for someone with a PHD and a couch to answer.

Wow. This is really turning out to be a scatterbrained post… From why am I afraid to talk to someone I know in a public setting to why can’t I get over my fear of being alone and rejection. Obviously these are things that have much deeper implications but I wouldn’t have the slightest clue about how to start processing them through this brain of mine and to put those thoughts down on paper (a.k.a. a blog). So there you have it. A weird, cryptic blog post about a variety of topics that are loosely connected… All that’s left is for Kevin Bacon to show up.