An Introvert Or A Feckin’ Eejit…

In a weekend I’ve watched more football matches than I have in the last two years. They were fun to view alright. But the experience as a whole has really made me think about why exactly I don’t go to these games very often or other public events like them for that matter. And it’s definitely begged the question; am I an introvert or a feckin’ eejit.. 

First of all as you can probably gather, I’m not huge into Gaelic as a sport. Sure, I love to play it. But it wouldn’t interest me in the slightest if it was on television. So you can kind of understand that actually going to see a match didn’t really bother me too much. While I have no real emotional investment in the sport I didn’t mind sitting in a stand with lots of other people to watch two matches. I just plugged in my ear phones and waited with no real feeling of anticipation for the games to begin.

Now this is where it all started.

Fast forward past the awkwardness of meeting my cousins’ friends, hanging around awkwardly on my phone as they sold match programs and tripping over the lip of the gate when I went to enter the actual stadium. Fast forward passed all of that to when I’m being directed to a row of seats along with some other people.

This is what we had to work with on the side of the stadium I was in. 

Now the row that we were all being directed to was at the very top of the steps, at the back of the stand. The radio/tv commentators were actually directly above us and it was kind of cool.

Anyhow the line of seats we were directed to fill were empty. I was one of the people at the front of the line so I had to go on the inside of the row furthest away from the steps.  There were two people in front of me; a man in his mid sixties and his wife. Directly behind me was another man in his sixties. So the people in front of me were at the very end of the row next to the metal fence separating the seating sections. They sat down in their seats and then I sat beside them. As you would.

Well I’ll be damned.

The man directly behind me decided for some odd reason to skip a seat and sit down there instead. Meaning there was a gap of one seat left between the two of us.  And It’s not like he was saving it for someone else though. He just didn’t want to take up all the available seats first like a normal person.

I wouldn’t mind but I was sitting close enough to the man beside me. We were almost touching thighs. So instead of us all being in the same boat with how close we were to each other in the seats, there was suddenly this gap. So I decided that instead of squashing up against the man beside me it would make sense to move into this spare seat and sit beside the slightly smaller man. But before I came to that conclusion it became this really fucking awkward game of ‘Should I or Shouldn’t I Move Seat’. 

For a normal person maybe it would be less of  a big deal but for someone like me who is as odd as two left feet it was just an awkward ordeal that I shouldn’t have had to go through. But because some lad though he’d be smart and skip a seat I was unfairly put in a position that I shouldn’t have to have been in in the first place.

Then at half time when the first half of the match was over the inevitable happened…

It was going to happen at some stage in the day. Unfortunately it popped up sooner rather then later but oh well. I wasn’t going to get too stressed about it.

Then I suddenly remembered something that was staring me right in the face.

It was so blatantly obvious I would have ended up missing it had I not had my wits about me…

It was half time.

That meant that EVERYONE was going to be in the toilets.

Fuck me. I almost died there and then thinking  of what I was going to have to face when I went to the toilet. 20-30 men all crowded a stainless steel urinal that stretched from one side of the room to another.

I’m a heterosexual male. I have no problems with my sexuality at all. But only two words can describe my feelings for public urination.

Fuck. That.

I’ve talked to some of my close friends and I’ve found out that I am actually not the only one that has a problem with this. Which is definitely comforting to know.

But ask me why I have a problem with it and I will tell you I don’t know. Because I really don’t. It just makes me really uncomfortable and I avoid it all costs.

So as you can imagine I chicken-ed out of it. But not before making an absolute fool of myself down in the toilets.

I had hyped myself up so much that I actually convinced myself I was going to do it this time. I was going to overcome the awkwardness and just pee. There would be no one else. Just me, myself and my pee.

I had even picked out my spot at the urinal.

I was walking over to it, thinking ‘holy shit this is fucking crazy. I’m actually about to do it. Yay. Go me’ when the worst possible thing that could happen at that moment of time happened.

My spot got closed in.

So I turned, walked over to the sink and washed my hands.

But not before making awkward eye contact with a weird-looking fifty year old who had actually seen and noticed what I had done.

‘My god. What the fuck even am I’. I think to myself.

This is normally the question I ask myself ten times a day so I shrug it off and pay no attention to it.

Then there was the whole seating thing.

Three quarters of the way into the second half I still hadn’t pee’d I snatched my moment while it was there and went to the toilets. As I had expected there was no one there. So I was happy enough to actually pee this time.

So I washed my hands and heated back to my seat in the stand.

Turns out that was now my next problem.

One after another they just never stop coming do they?

I couldn’t find my fucking seat.

I went up steps.

Down steps.

Across seat rows.

But fucking nada.

I could not find my way back to my seat.

So I decided to sit in the nearest available one. Then whilst fixated on my phone I just about heard the final whistle blow over my headphones signalling the first game was over and such and such a team had won. Don’t even ask me what the team was named.

Two minutes later I looked up from my phone. To my confusion I saw all the players of the winning team making their way towards me. Like coming into the stands.

No.

Not towards me I realised as I looked to my right.

Towards the fucking table with the trophy on it.

I had picked the worst possible seat to sit on in a blind panic. I hadn’t even noticed that the trophy was beside me.

So as you can imagine I quickly got up and walked away because again two words only:

Fuck. That.

When you’re as accident prone as me you tend to avoid any sizeable amount of attention. So a thousand spectators looking in your general direction is a no go area.

A load of other shit like this happened throughout the day. It was literally just an ongoing struggle of going from one awkward situation to another. Most notably the moment where I actually decided to clap because someone scored and then got a load of fucking death stares because I was on the opposing team’s side of the stand…

But it really got me thinking. Is there something wrong with me that I’m just this introverted piece of shit that can’t handle large crowds or am I just an eejit?

I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. If it’s something to do with my personality, Idfk.  

This is the reason why I don’t go to youth discos. I’m too awkward for that shit. It’s why I don’t go to other events like them either if I given the chance. I just try to avoid this awkwardness at all costs.

If I knew the answer it still wouldn’t make a difference to me. I’d be as awkward as ever. So if I never find out which I am it won’t matter. But maybe by sharing about it I can open up a space for some dialogue. For people who feel the same way as me. I had this conversation with a close friend of mine during the week and turns out we kind of felt the same way. We both felt as awkward as each other. Which I would have never known about this person. But because I breached the subject he decided to open up to me about it. It honestly felt really good to have someone to talk to about it. Someone who could actually relate to some of the things I was saying.

This is the main reason why I’m writing about this now. I want to reach out to people in the same boat as me and tell them that they’re not alone.

We can all be introverted eejits together.  🙂

---

So if you would like to talk to me I would be down to reply to you if you hit me up on any of the following:

kidmentalist@gmail.com

@KidMentalist on Twitter.

By commenting on this post. 

Thanks for sticking around until the end. I know this post is a little on the long side but I had to vent a little. I thought that something a little funny would be enjoyable during this serious times of hurricanes and shootings.  Hopefully you enjoyed. If not then I won’t worry too much. Can’t please everybody. I’d love if you did enjoy it that you would follow this blog and check out some of the other posts on here. Maybe even leave a comment with how much you enjoyed it.

Also maybe you guys wouldn’t mind checking out my latest YouTube video? I’m going t be doing tons more of those in the future. My next blog post is going to explain why I’m starting YouTube. Again. So don’t worry about the why for now. Just sit back and enjoy the first of many!

Thanks for reading.

Until next time,

Stay posted.

K.M