I’m back…exams finished yesterday and today I find myself ready to study but with nothing to study for. I should go back to bed but I’m wired and I don’t know what to do with myself. So here I am – writing to the blog-o-sphere. I’m going to have to keep it short though ’cause my social skills, which were low to begin with, are next to nothing right now. This happens when you lock yourself in a room for vast periods without human contact…I think I’ve talked about this before, but I find post-finals I am not only brain dead but also incapable of carrying on small talk.
Imagine running into an acquaintance on the street and trying to carry on a conversation. I’m talking about someone you know well enough to say hi to but that isn’t a good friend. Normally there is a little awkwardness in the conversation because you don’t know this person well enough to ask about the interesting details in their life. Instead, in a normal scenario, you would rely on small talk – how’s the weather, sports team, work, etc. Now – post finals, remove any knowledge of the world around you because you have been living in a vacuum for the past month (or two). Causal conversation suddenly becomes infinitely harder.
I also find that the small visual cues that are present in normal conversation, the ones that clue you into whether the person is interested or not in what you’re saying are gone. It takes me a week before I feel re-adjusted to the world outside of my office and able to respond in a normal way to these subtle cues. It’s laughable – it really is.
Now imagine you gather a large group of individuals suffering from the same social awkwardness (“re-entry” syndrome) together, you add some alcohol and a nightclub…and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what the post-exam party was like.
It feels good to back to the world of the living.
