So You Thought You Were An Introvert

Slightly misleading title. I am an introvert. There's no changing that despite the constant social demands of society. I still "recharge" alone, function best when I get time to myself, and at times prefer solitude to even the best of company. Social situations are commonly more nerve inducing than welcome, and I have often caught myself questioning previous conversations I've had. That all being said, I have trained myself to be social and am plenty competent at doing the human interaction thing.

Peace Corps though demands a whole nother level of social competency. I actually thought of titling this post, "Peace Corps as Exposure Therapy," but it's more like "Peace Corps as Exposure Therapy Done the Absolutely Wrong Way and Actually Stuff Just Keeps Happening and You've Got to Roll With It." So this post is dedicated to all those completely and utterly awkward and uncomfortable situations (with a few legitimately terrifying ones) that I've had no idea how to respond to but survived anyway.

So first off, I would like to make you all aware of the driving situation in Armenia. I love lots of things about Armenia and Armenian culture, but this is one thing Armenia and I just don't vibe on. Their population density is pretty low here, and a lot of that population doesn't own cars. This somehow translates to even basic road rules being super optional. Going 60 km per hour down blind mountain switchbacks in the rain while passing two other cars so three of you are racing around the next curve hoping nothing comes the opposite direction is not a rare occurrence. Top acceleration with slam-on-the-breaks stopping is like a fad lifestyle choice. I've ridden down mountain switchbacks with no guard rails at high speeds when the engine stopped on a mini bus, and there was no power steering or power brakes. While drinking and driving is against the law here, it's really not even considered questionable in most cases. In fact, questioning even the most scary driving choices here can be offensive depending on your relationship and status. Meanwhile, in a few days it will be the 10 year anniversary of the day I was driving my friends home early on a Friday night and we got hit head on by a drunk driver. It was bad, and that kind of extreme car accident is traumatizing.

I'm sure y'all can imagine what the first month was like for me. I would audibly gasp in fear almost every car ride. There was one instance where tears uncontrollably started rolling down my face as I sat in the back begging the other Trainees to just ignore it. It did help that during our training period, most of our car travels were with Peace Corps drivers. Major shout out to Razmik, who is by far the kindest and most protective driver I've ever met and made this terrified PCV feel safe to the extent that it was in his control. I still hug him every time I see him because thank you is not enough. Anyway, 14 months later and I barely miss a heart beat when we have close calls. Being terrified to move wasn't an option, so I slowly managed to stop being terrified. Like I said, exposure therapy.

Moving on to less extreme discomfort, let's talk about even the theory of your first day in country. You are moving in with complete strangers, at their mercy for food, hygeine, and other needs, with no real understanding of each other's cultural guidelines, social cues, or acceptable behaviors, and virtually no way to communicate with each other. I'm not sure why I didn't think about that before i signed up for Peace Corps. Maybe I subconsciously acknowledged that that would totally freak me out so I just chose to not address it. I think my brain actually went into shock that day. The only thing I can really remember is this salad I took a few nibbles of out of everything on the food table. The actual day and faux pauxs and interactions, those weren't actually processed. My journal entries remember the day a lot more optimistically and fondly than my residual feelings do. But we all survived that day and learned how to thrive in that environment. Even my decidedly introverted self.

I speak so much more of the language now, but there are still so many times where I feel like a dog cocking it's head to the side in complete confusion. Today I was walking to the bus stop with my headphones in when a woman walking towards me stepped into my path and made eye contact. As I was still walking towards her I was trying to figure out if this was like a power challenge or if she was just confused as to who I was and why I was in Armenia. Right as I was about to hit the critical awkward point of either inevitable collision or a clumsy attempt to swoop around her, a hint of facial recognition came to my brain. I stopped and pulled my ear phones out. Here's how I thought the conversation went:
Woman: Hello, we have met before.
Me: Uh, yeah?
W: Yes, is your work going well? Emily Gesell, right?
Me (a little confused and wracking my brain for how this woman knows me because literally no one in Armenia  knows or can actually say my last name except this one woman): Uh..
yeah.
W: 9b.... [she spouts off my exact address]
Me (now super confused and trying desperately to pretend I know what's happening): Yep!
W: Good. Bye!
Me (realizing there's no way to save that conversation from the awkward): Uhhuh, bye!

It took about two blocks of me walking and replaying the conversation in my head before I realized this is how it actually went down:
Woman: Hello, you have a package.
Me (where I should have realized I recognize her from my post office): Uh, Yeah?
W: I work at the post office. Emily Gesell right?
Me (looking like I don't know my own name): Uh... yeah.
W: [Says my address to confirm that I actually know who the heck I am and she has the right person]
Me (probably appearing as if I suddenly remembered my identity): Yep!
W: Good? [Aka, that was weird] Bye!
Me (accidently confirming how weird it was): Uhhuh, Bye!

As you can see, any attempts here to save face are fruitless. In my defense, the colloquial sentences for "We have met before" and "You have a package" are literally the difference between the 'ts' sound pronounced openly with aspiration and the 'ts' sound pronounced tightly with no air. I literally can't count how many times I've walked away from a conversation realizing I completely failed at understanding. Or how many times Ive walked away realizing I just said the most ridiculous thing ever. It's good I'm not a big ice cream fan, because I refuse to say the word. You see, if you pronounce ice cream slightly wrong in Armenian, it comes out as condom. That one just seems a little too risky. My friend spent a week saying "store" instead of "bathroom" and I know Ive done worse. When despite even your best efforts, you make the most blaring social mistakes on a daily basis, you stop worrying so much that they're going to happen.

For more squeamish people who don't want to read about bodily functions, just skip this paragraph. For real, dont comment "TMI" if you cant handle the tmi, just stop reading here and continue below. When you move to a new country with a completely new diet, it's like a shock to your system. My digestive system still hasn't re-regulated. I was visiting a friend who still lives with a host family once. I needed to rush to the bathroom for another unexpected digestive system revolt, and only later realized the lack of toilet paper. My pockets are empty and I'm sitting there thinking, I literally don't even know the words to ask for toilet paper. My brain just went blank and I couldn't think of a single thing I could actually say that would get that message across. And my friend was upstairs. So I took off my socks, used one to take care of business, turned it inside out, balled it up inside the other one, and stuffed them into my pocket. As if that wasn't mortifying enough, when I finished my friends host mom looked at me a little sideways and told me the next time I needed toilet paper to just yell. In my brain, I was like, she knowssss. In the states, if for some reason something like that happened, I would have made every effort to avoid that person probably for the rest of my life. Now, well, it's just another day. I've been back to visit that friend and her mom repeatedly. I've heard enough to know, if a PCV denies ever having an embarrassing bathroom situation, they are lying to you. Seriously.

I almost completely forgot to mention the complete physical awkwardness of just being a larger human who is not at all graceful. You don't know true physical awkwardness until you're standing on a packed marshutni and literally fall right into someone's lap. Or just into the person standing next to you. Or step on their toes in an attempt to not fall. Or whack 7 people with your backpack cause you're just trying to get off at your stop before the driver pulls away. Or bash your head off the top of the door so badly that you hear everyone om the bus wince. I can go on...

Another previously strongly avoided thing that I've magically become immune to: literally being the awkward silent kid in the corner. For the first 6 months, I could talk about maybe 4 things with confidence. I could tell you about me and my family, what I was doing here, where I was from, and what I liked about Armenia. To be fair, for the first 6 months that's also all anyone asked me. Anyway, after those topics were exhausted, my options were to randomly interject with things that had no relevance to current conversation or sit silently trying (and very often failing) to understand what was being talked about by others. So I've spent countless family dinners, dinner parties, teachers lounge convos, coffee breaks, and general conversations just sitting there awkwardly silent while the people around me have engaging conversation. Sometimes they will try to include me by asking questions, which is worse because I have rarely  followed the conversation successfully to this point and have no context in which to respond, and that brings us back to my awkward conversation attempts. After the first failed attempt, they usually leave me alone.

I don't mind silence anymore. I don't even experience discomfort when I'm sitting quietly in a room where everyone else is engaged. I don't fear failing at social situations now. 1. Because I've already failed in every way possible and it's completely okay. The earth has not in fact crumbled. 2. Because when I can actually understand the other person or people, it all feels so much easier now. Like, I can think and form a response without having to work through interpreting the 5 different possible explanations for what I think I just heard? Easy! Embarrassing situations are still embarrassing, but there is no longer a sense of prolonged shame. Ive talked before about how much the word shame and phrase shame on you is thrown around in Armenian culture. One of my favorite things to say to my kids now, is ամոտ չունեմ (amot choonem) I have no shame. For the first time in my life, I feel like that's actually true. And the fear of car accidents... I wrote this entire blog post in a marshutni (minibus). I've been counting along the way and we are up to 6 close calls, either narrow misses by other cars or drastic brake-slamming. I half-heartedly looked up to investigate the cause once. If exposure therapy does all this even when done incorrectly, as a completely and utterly unqualified person to recommend mental health things, I highly recommend it!

There's a few other potential titles for this post: I Have No Shame. Growing pains. Bravery is Not Optional. Learning to Suck It Up. I Can Do the Things Now. The bottom line is, this experience is difficult and uncomfortable and challenging, but I've already grown a lot from it. One year left. Let's see what other things I can do!