Day One Hundred Sixty-Nine: Stepping out of my Introvert Shell

I have heavy leanings toward introvertedness. I do not easily or comfortably make connections with new people. I see this as a flaw in myself, and it's something I have to consciously work on. Therefore, I was proud of myself today for initiating interactions with two different people--one in person and one via Facebook. The face-to-face interaction occurred at Weston's basketball game with the mother of one of his teammates, and we ended up chatting during the whole game. This seems completely normal and not at all edgy, I know, but for me it's a bit out there, so bear with me. Because of our divide-and-conquer system of delivering our four kids to their different activities, I have only ever taken Weston to one basketball practice (where I actually sat in the car in order to get some writing done) and have only gotten to attend one other game. So, I haven't met most of the parents and had the opportunity to engage in bleacher small talk with them (which I honestly don't really love, but which seems to be the way most conversations get off the ground). But before the game started tonight, I overheard this mom say something interesting to one of the coaches and decided to strike up a conversation on that topic. It was delightful to visit with her and reminded that social interactions don't have to be (that) hard.

The Facebook interaction was even more bizarre for me. I follow a group of "worldschoolers" with something like 40,000 members from all over the world. They are a great source of travel information, and following the group is a way for me to travel vicariously when I'm not traveling in real life. Someone posted something recently that resonated with me. I responded. We had a brief virtual conversation and realized we both live in Flower Mound of all the crazy things. The connection seemed so serendipitous that I immediately sent her a PM and invited her to lunch, which is way outside my normal MO. These were two pretty big Firsts for me, and I'm proud of myself for operating outside my comfort zone.