#5: The Myth of Awkward

And a huge milestone

Eli Kravitz

May 28, 2025

Thanks to all of you for subscribing and sharing, this success is literally thanks to you!

Now… do you think we can make it to 200? I guess we’ll find out 😬🫣

Either way, back to the scheduled program:

So, I met someone new this week.

Here’s a (slightly exaggerated) account of how that went:

We made eye contact. He smiled and introduced himself. I smiled back and said hello.

Then, predictably — nothing.

Immediately, I felt the temperature rising:

Quick, say something. Anything! Make the awkward stop…

The room around me became blurry. For an endless second, all I saw was his frozen smile.

I ran through my conversation-starter menu:

So… I like your shirt.
Great weather today!
I mean, are you from here?

I couldn’t decide. I eventually let out a faint mumble, a garbled mix of options two and three.

Thankfully, the stranger was sympathetic. Pretending to need an emergency drink refill, he ran off with a quick “catch you later,” relieving me of my discomfort.

But wait a second…

After the awkward ended, I was left with the nagging thought… Why?

Why is it always my job to save the moment? Why do I always feel the need to fix the awkward?

Then, something clicked.

I realized that in every conversation, the other person is either:

Feeling awkward
Not feeling awkward

In fact, roughly 50% of people report feeling uncomfortable during a first encounter. (Here is the source, academic wife of mine: Ghasemian et al., 2012).

But then I started wondering:

If he felt awkward… why didn’t he say something?

And if he didn’t feel awkward… then why did I feel so much pressure?

The experiment:

Always the scientist, I decided to hold a little experiment (sample size: 1).

I went to another event the other day — events are my special way of avoiding the actually important things on my to-do list.

I saw a guy I’d never met walking straight toward me. The awkward encounter felt inevitable.

I felt myself panicking.

All systems activated: Red alert! AVOID!

I was flooded with emergency brain storming:

Should I spill my drink? Pretend to have a coughing fit? Reply to an imaginary, urgent text?

But instead… I did none of these.

I took a deep breath, and allowed myself to hold eye contact with this perfect stranger.

He came close, smiled, and said hey.

I said hi, and smiled back.

He paused, then walked off.

And I felt… completely okay.

The takeaway:

Social interactions are messy. But it’s not awkward if we don’t let it be.

We put pressure on ourselves to be smooth, polished, or witty. But we aren’t that way, at least not all the time. No one is.

Through my experiment, I learned that embracing the awkward, just jumping in and going with it, might paradoxically be the least awkward thing I ever did.

So go out there, and be awkward.

After all, that’s how new friendships begin. And restraining orders. But mostly friendships.

Talk soon,

Eli