Elaine+P’s+Final+AmEx+2014+Speech

=Title of Speech=

"Awkward" and Not Caring

=Text of Speech=

It’s a normal Wednesday afternoon, around 2:10. I’m sitting in the passenger seat of the Mini Cooper with my cousin, Ailene, driving. Ailene is complaining about her new nickname lovingly christened by her friends, Dictator Lene Bean, while I’m telling her about Se ñ or Perfecto’s latest pro-vegan comment. We slow down and stop at the intersection of Hill and Telegraph, where the light always turns red moments before we reach it. The car to the left of us slows to a halt as well. Then it happens. It always happens.

Ailene glances to the left, snaps her head back towards me and mutters, “Oh my god I just made eye contact with the guy next to us that was so awkward.” in one breath.

And so it begins. Please note the following conversation is an accurate representation of the exchange shared between us after this inevitably happens.

“Ailene, your line of sight briefly crossed his line of sight. That is not awkward.” “Oh my god, it was so awkward.” “Ailene! Eye contact is not inherently awkward!” “No you don’t understand! I made this really awkward face on accident when we made eye contact…” “IT’S NOT AWKWARD STOP CALLING IT AWKWARD!”

Admittedly, my sister handles situations like this better. When Ailene will say, “You want to hear something awkward that happened to me?” my sister will flatly reply, “You mean everything that’s ever happened to you ever?”

The definition of “awkward” is “ causing or feeling embarrassment or inconvenience”. Except nowadays it seems to mean “the heart and soul of every occurrence and interaction, according to the typical teenage female”. Is it so embarrassing that you happened to meet eyes with a stranger for a nanosecond? Is it such a major inconvenience? This brings me to my first point: stop calling everything awkward. Just stop. The fact that your hand grazed someone else’s was not awkward. Or that the last button on your shirt wasn’t buttoned. Or that you tripped on a bit of uneven pavement.

Admittedly, there are situations that will now and forever be just sheer awkward. Calling a teacher mom, someone’s phone blasting any song from the album “Kill ‘Em All” by Metallica while the church is taking communion, making fun of someone without knowing they’re right behind you, etc. I remember reading something on Reddit about a guy, let’s call him John, who was about to go on a school field trip. John and his entire class were waiting on one person in the bus. When the guy, let’s call him Arnold, finally stepped on, people were teasing him, saying, “Wow thanks a lot dude” and “Jeez, thanks for making us wait Arnold”. People were ragging on him so much that John decided it would be funny to tease him about something totally unrelated and obviously not his fault. He yelled, “Yeah, and thanks for the Holocaust!”. He then immediately remembered that Arnold was the German exchange student. So yes, some restrictions may apply.

But for 90% of situations, you can laugh/joke your way through any potential embarrassment. Which brings me to my second and final point: stop caring about what other people think about you. Awkward situations stem from personal embarrassment, and embarrassment stems from caring about what other people think. Don’t give a crap about what other people think! Look around the room. You’ll probably never see these people again after high school! Why waste your peace of mind on someone who won’t even remember you ten years from now? (You’re all lovely people by the way, and I’m sure we’ll stay best friends for all eternity)

I used to be really nervous performing in front of people. Señor Perfecto once asked me if performing was the “major stress of my life” and, to my surprise, it was. But yesterday (totally didn’t write this last night by the way), yesterday, for the first time, I had a recital and I wasn’t fazed at all. My mom once told me before a performance in 5th grade, “Don’t be nervous, because no one will pay attention to you. They only pay attention to their own kids.”

So naturally, I never let my family watch me perform if I can help it.

But continuing on, I finally took those words to heart. It took six years for them to sink in. But they did. So in the America I wish to grow up in, I want to see at least this class stop caring so much about the opinions of others. And using the word “awkward”. Use a freaking thesaurus people. Thank you.

=Cite Your Sources=