Invisible Not Broken - Chronic Illness Podcast Network

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter

-

EXITING YOUR COMFORT ZONE

The outside world is an intimidating place when you've been confined to your bedroom staring at your featureless ceiling for 18 months. The most mundane of experiences that everyone is familiar with, are overwhelming to you.  The most frightening experience of all? Talking to women. I’m your host, Jason Herterich.  On today’s show, I’m going searching for love.  In my search, I go outside of my comfort zone and into my Discomfort Zone.

PART ONE - MISS LIFEGUARD

For several weeks, I had been observing a cute lifeguard at my local swimming pool. Then, the day came when I tested the waters on our compatibility…

There is a cute lifeguard at the pool that I've been going to and after 40 minutes of being in the pool I was pretty cold, pretty tired, got about five hours of sleep last night. But I was like, ‘No Jason you're doing this I don't care this might go terribly but you're doing it.’

So I walk up to her and I say, ‘Hey can I tell you a secret?’ And she says, ‘What's that?’ I say, ‘I used to be addicted to soap but now I'm clean.

’Which I thought was a very clever pun. But she didn't get the pun, and I was already shivering and then I started to worry about that I was shivering and I was coming off as anxious, which just makes everything ten times worse.

It just sort of ended in this very awkward I was like, ‘Oh you don't get the pun, too bad!’ And just walked away.

Felt absolutely terrible about it but I got to remind myself that getting yourself outside of your comfort zone doesn't always result in this magical image that you have of best case scenario. Sometimes it's going to go terribly and that's just part of the process. I guess I'm a little bit proud of myself for holding myself to it. I'm kind of concerned to go back to that pool now because I'm afraid I'm gonna run into her and just be a bumbling idiot all over again. haha I don’t know how I’m going to work around that. But yeah I'm a little bit proud of myself because I did what I set out to do.

A FEW DAYS LATER

So I was feeling a little bit vulnerable when I recorded that last monologue but I've had some time to reflect on things. So let me just recap what went down…

I walk up to the lifeguard, I'm as smooth… I’m as smooth as…as a smoothie and I drop a very witty joke and she just stands there confused. She doesn't recognize the hilarious pun staring her right in the face. And then I leave the conversation feeling like I'm the awkward one. This was clearly her fault!

A student can't ace a math test if the person grading him has never seen numbers before. A conversation between two people is doomed from the start if they don't speak the same language. I speak the language of puns and she doesn't.

So yeah, I blame her… and her… her.…What's the word I'm looking for… slow–wittedness!

A FEW MORE DAYS LATER

After sleeping on it for a few more days, I had a change of heart. I've never been someone that gives up easily. Why should my interaction with the lifeguard be any different? I clearly needed some mentoring and I knew just the person to ask.

Knock on the door

Jason: yo!

Andy: what’s up man?

Jason: what up bro?

My friend Andy dropped by to help me out.

(Read the rest of the transcript here: https://invisiblenotbroken.com/discomfortzone/soap-addict)