Home

So, I got home from my trip about a week ago.  During the week, I work evenings (till 11) so I really don't get out much at all.  During my trip, I had access to that wonderful Panera Bread cafe to sit and relax in, but there's no such place around here; so night game is difficult, and day game is even tougher.  I do try and get out to the mall and the like, but that's hardly somewhere I can go daily.  All that said, I have been out 3 times since getting home, and haven't used any of those to do any approaches.

I find it actually a lot more difficult being home than I did back there.  See, when I was back there I had perfect easy conversation with everyone I met.  "I'm not from around here."  I'd ask where the cool place to hang out was, or mention how I love going to places like Panera while I still can, or even just compare countries in various ways.  I may not have done much in the way of approaches down there, but I definitely did improve, and I got really far with my overall social anxiety in groups and the like.

But now that I'm home I don't have that.  All of those lines, all of those openers, even just "Hi, my name is Cameron" scream "STRANGE!!" to me.  Strange as in "omg why is this dude talking to me?" strange.  I want to keep the 'not from around here' tone with people and use it to find the cool places to hang out here, an an easy date setup; but even then I feel...false.  Not neccesarily because I'd be 'lying' to them not knowing where to hang out or anything, but more because the only justification I can have for not knowing is because I'm a fucking loner; or at least I have been.  "So how long have you lived here?" "Oh 3-4 years now" "and you didn't know where to hang out?" A) "Well I knew where to hang out, I just wanted to know where you hung out" (flirty, lying, scary) or B) "Yeah my work schedule keeps me from going out too much on the weekdays, and I usually end up out of town on weekends with friends." (true...ish)

I guess I just always assume I'm being given a shit test, and I hate the thought of being judged.  I am a very judging person in and of myself, and my worst fear is meeting someone who's just like me, and is going to judge me under the same light I judge the rest of the world.  (Hey, at least I'm honest about it)  The answer to this, I know, is that you're the one giving HER a shit test.  She has to measure up to YOU.  But knowing this in my conscious and acting on this in my subconscious are two very different things.

I do hope to get to the mall this weekend, at the very least.  I want to try running with that line at least once.  *I* think it's a great plan, because you can twist your words to be as flirty or as innocuous as the situation deems ("where'd a beautiful girl like you go to spend your friday night?" vs. "hey you know where a cool place to sit down for a drink is in this town?").  It worked with clerks and salespeople in Ohio, so I can only imagine it would here.  One can only hope that here, now that I know I'm not going to be leaving in a couple days or anything, I can convince myself to try for a date/phone number...