I never dated much in college. I was a socially awkward curvy girl with low self-esteem and a chronic case of word vomit. So not much has changed. Throw in the fact that I live within the confines of the Seattle Freeze, and my perpetual single status was inevitable. So I wasn’t prepared when the unexpected happened. I was sitting at the coffeehouse on my college campus when a casual acquaintance I knew through a school club plopped down beside me on the heavily loved couch I was perching on. He didn’t waste much time before asking me if I wanted to go swing dancing with him sometime. I stared blankly at him for a minute while my mind caught up to what was happening. In that time, his nerves got the best of him causing his verbal diarrhea to flare up. He began telling me about the sweater he was wearing, made for him by his grandmother. It had a wolf howling on it and he told me the exact thread count of the sweater. Recognizing the signs of a nervous babbler, I rescued him by saying I wanted to focus on school. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we didn’t really have much in common and I wasn’t interested. We never really hung out after that, but I know he is happily married. He just needed to find his people.
I recently volunteered in the first aid tent at a Renaissance Faire. I got to help people with cuts, heat exhaustion, and even anaphylaxis, all while wearing a corset. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. Part of the whole experience was camping on the festival grounds, along with every other vendor and volunteer. The community atmosphere was as refreshing as the Aloe vera I spread over my entire body. There is no Seattle freeze within the Renaissance Faire, just camaraderie and fun with like-minded people. So I let my guard down and allowed myself to just be the amusingly awkward, nerdy person I love to be.
Once the festival ended for the day, the vendors and volunteers gathered for some after-hours fun. I was walking from my tent to the meeting spot when a woman joined me on the path. I instinctively reached for my phone, as most Seattleites do, before remembering I was free to chat. Without even asking her name, I told her about what was in my head. My roommate had found a cat she wanted to adopt after losing her beloved furbaby Thundercloud to old age. She had a lot in common with the 10-year-old rescue cat and wanted to give her a loving home. The only thing standing in the way was the adoption fee. I had decided earlier that day that I would pay it for her. It seemed like it was a relationship that was meant to be. I told all of this to my new nameless friend. By the time I was finished, I expected her to give me a passive-aggressive response and put in her ear buds. But she didn’t! She liked the story and thanked me for sharing it.
So I babbled, just like my coffeehouse friend had. It was about a cat, not a wolf, but close enough. I also have no intention of making a sweater using cat fur (though I know that’s been done). I’ve learned that random, often awkward, chatter is ok when I’m surrounded by my people. Maybe that’s the key to thawing the Seattle freeze?
Thawing the Seattle Freeze 