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NYC Meetup October 8

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September 29, 2016
Uncategorized
3 Comments

From your host, E.:

Hi all,
What: Captain Awkward NYC meetup
When: Saturday Oct. 8th, 5pm onward
Where:
  • Part 1) Think Coffee, 123 4th Avenue, Manhattan
  • Part 2) Regal Union Square Statium 14 movie theater, 850 Broadway, Manhattan
After last month’s successful meetup, I’m going to try to make this a regular monthly-ish gathering.
This time around we will be at the Think Coffee at 123 4th Avenue, in the Union Square neighborhood of Manhattan on Saturday October 8th.  My idea was we’ll be at the coffeeshop from 5-7:30ish, and then I’ll be going to a 7:50 showing of “The Birth of a Nation” at the Regal Union Square Stadium 14 theater on Broadway a couple blocks away.  Anyone that wants is welcome to come with me to the movie as well.
Think Coffee is on street level with an accessible bathroom.  They serve coffee, tea, soups, sandwiches and baked goods.  They have vegan options.
I will bring the makings for telephone pictionary which works really well for groups: https://derailedtelephonepictionary.wordpress.com/what-is-telephone-pictionary/
I have chin length brown hair and will have a stuffed toy robot on the table with me.
My email address is pixarislife@yahoo.com. Hope to see you there!
Have a great time. I’m very interested to see what people think of the movie.

#908: “Staying the night with someone carries a lot of intimacy weight for me. How do I manage my feelings about that with potential partners?”

By
September 27, 2016
Captain Awkward's Dating Guide for Geeks, Culture, Dating, Reader Questions, Relationships, self-care, sexual health, sexuality, Uncategorized
72 Comments

Dear Captain Awkward:

A girl I’ve been seeing for 5 weeks broke up with me and it hit me really hard. It took me a night to realize that I had attributed a lot of emotional weight to staying over at her place on week 4, when she asked me to come over and stay the night . So when we had the break up talk the week after that, I felt completely blindsided.

In my mind, staying the night means we are Officially In A Relationship. I was already imagining meeting her friends and hopefully eventually her family, stuff like that. In the days following that night, she invited me to a gathering with her friends and also to a dinner her friend invited both of us to, so it seemed like my expectations of what that night meant were holding true; up to that point I hadn’t met any of her friends. And then a week later she wanted to break up.

I told her my feelings about that night during the breakup, and her response was the typical “you built up too much of this relationship too fast, maybe slow it down in the future.” But I really don’t think I can change how I feel about staying the night with someone. Based on talking to some friends, it seems like people my age don’t attach nearly as much weight to this as I do, as it’s just one of Those Things You Do in a new relationship. Is there anything I can do to resolve this disparity in the future when dating someone new?

Basic background: I’m 28 years old and I didn’t start dating until I was 25. The longest relationship I’ve been in was 6 weeks. I’ve read about attachment patterns in adults and I solidly fall into the anxious-preoccupied model.

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#907: “My hyper-vigilant work bully is bringing up all my old issues about being watched & judged.”

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September 27, 2016
boundaries, COMMUNICATION, Disability, Mental Health, Reader Questions, Uncategorized
77 Comments

Captain Awkward and the Awkward Army,

I recently accepted a position in a line of work that is brand new for me, exciting, mentally stimulating, and will enable me to finally be financially stable. This is all great.

Except.

Except for one co-worker, a trainee who was hired on at the same time as me and is in the same stage of training.

This co-worker has a bad habit of openly watching me and waiting for me to screw something up. Then she loves to make a big deal about it and “correct” my errors. Laughs loudly and points it out to the senior techs.

I realize that this is not a big deal. But, I have some issues with being watched. Growing up, my mom threatened my siblings and me with hiding cameras in the house to make sure we weren’t “sinning” or doing anything wrong while both parents were gone (we were latchkey kids, and I was the authority on site, as oldest kid). She was just off enough that we believed her. It created an environment of deep suspicion and paranoia growing up.

I was recently diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder as well. So being watched with the obvious intent to catch me screwing up + being around strange people in general= a perpetually nervous me. I am very competent and have historically received high reviews on my work… as long as I wasn’t being micro-managed or stared at.

Obviously I don’t want the anxiety she gives me to translate into actual poor performance. I really enjoy this job. It involves animals, who are naturally more receptive to hyper-aroused states in their human handlers. I don’t want my anxiety translating into anxiety for them.

I’m working on the anxiety and self esteem issues with my therapist, as well as dealing with the weird shit left over from my past.

What I need help with is a script or scripts for dealing with this co-worker. Polite requests to allow my trainer to train me and correct any errors have been met with complete brush-offs and stories of what an amazing manager/student/daughter/sister she is, which clearly makes her more qualified to police me.

Help!

Visibly Anxious

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September London meetup

By
September 19, 2016
Meetups, Uncategorized

Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX near Waterloo station, 24th September , 11am onwards.

Crafting meetup again.  Bring any crafts you’re working on, bring stash for others, or I can teach knitting up to intermediate.  Or just come and chat to people while they craft!

The venue sell food in a cafe (standard sandwiches etc.), but they also don’t mind people bringing food in from outside. There are several other local places where you can buy stuff as well. The excellent food market outside has loads of different food options, which can fit most food requirements, or you can also bring a packed lunch.
Meet on the fourth floor, outside the Blue Bar (go up in the JCB lift, lift 7, which is bright yellow and quite musical). I have tried to check with the centre to make sure the Blue Bar is free, but if not I will update this post and in the Facebook group to say where we are – or email me if you’re lost…

Here is the internal map of the Royal Festival Hall: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/sites/default/files/documents/RFH_map.pdf

I will have my Cthulhu with me, which looks like this: http://forbiddenplanet.com/3950-cthulhu-baby-plush/  One time I forgot it but I will do my best this time, however if I forget again I will put up a sign. I have long brown hair and glasses.

The venue is accessible via a lift, and has accessible toilets.  Waterloo tube station has step free access on the Jubilee line but not on the Northern line.

The London Awkward group has a Facebook page, which is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/549571375087294/.  There is also a thread in the new forums for saying hello.

My email is Kate DOT Towner AT Gmail DOT com

(October meetup will be the 22nd.)

Cheers,
Kate

#901: “I was dumped by my theater group. Now what?”

By
September 15, 2016
bygones, collaboration, Pep talks for the creatively blocked, Reader Questions, rejection, self-care, Uncategorized
109 Comments

Dear Captain,

I’ll preface this letter by saying that I’m a chronically depressed woman with big anxiety problems and BDP (and one of the ways it manifest is a crippling fear of abandonment).

I have been dumped. By a theater group. I was friend or friendly with all the members (some before the theater). I didn’t see it coming.

We’re an amateur group, so each year our director is whoever volunteers. Someone, let’s call her Loki (I’m feeling petty) took over the job, was congratulated (it’s not an easy job and nobody else was rushing for it). She organized a few reading session over the summer; I attended the first, the second I was in vacation and the two last ones I was too depressed to attend, which I didn’t think would be a big deal. The decision was ultimately hers, she took it, chose a play with eight roles even though we were ten comedians. One week ago she announced it, and last night called me to tell me I was out because she has chosen “to keep the people most invested this summer”. Somehow I’m the only one out.

An additional reason I’m pissed: she chose to cut me out even though I was already a member of the group, but brought her brother in and in an subsequent text she sent me, she talked about the scheduling difficulties (why did she told me that??) (I had no schedule constraint as I have a job with regular hours, no partner or kid and no other activity).

She repeated she was sorry, and I could still be part of the group by doing the grunt work (my words, not hers) of building the set or sewing the costumes (not interested). She also repeatedly offered to me to talk this over around coffee, which I’m very wary about because 1)i don’t see the point beside easing her possible guilt 2)I get emotional real quick and rn all I could see happen is me crying or me yelling, which are both bad. 3)I don’t want to somehow get back in because she would take pity of my mental health issues.

The rest of the group probably doesn’t yet knows what she did and why, they would have said something and I assume she wanted to tell me first.

The final thing is that the scholar year has already started, so it’s gonna be hard to find another, if any, theater group (full of strangers!) I guess my question is: how do I deal with those feeling, how do I deal with Loki and the rest of the group?

Sad And Pissed the Hell Off (she/her)

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New York City MeetUp, September 10

By
August 31, 2016
Meetups, Uncategorized
5 Comments

From your host, Emma:

Hi all,

I will be hosting a Captain Awkward meetup on Saturday September 10th starting at 5pm at Irving Park Coffee Roasters at their Union Square location at 71 Irving Place in Manhattan.

This is a coffee shop that serves a full menu of soups, salads, sandwiches and baked goods. There are some vegetarian and vegan options and sandwiches can be made on gluten-free bread. Their entrance is below street level so there are a few steps there.

Their website is: https://irvingfarm.com/pages/gramercy

I will be bringing the movie trivia card game Cineplexity (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17209/cineplexity)
and maybe some coloring pages & crayons, feel free to bring anything you think would be a fun group activity.

I have chin length brown hair and will have a stuffed toy robot on the table with me.

My email address is pixarislife@yahoo.com.

Hope to see you there!

Have the best time!

#895: “Ugh, my mom re-married my jerk stepdad. How do I make it clear to his family that I don’t want to be a part of them?”

By
August 31, 2016
Uncategorized
90 Comments

Hi Captain,

My mom was married to “Joe” for 19 years, my entire childhood, and they had two kids together. Their relationship was… tumultuous, largely because of Joe’s selfishness, sexism, short temper, and complete inability to manage money wisely, among other charming qualities. He has a rather large extended family and kids from his first marriage, and they were present for my childhood, but I wasn’t really close with any of them. About 7 years ago, when I was 21, he and my mom (finally) split up, and I didn’t keep in contact with him or his family, although I would occasionally hear from my siblings what they were up to. My mom remarried, but that relationship ended about 18 months ago, when she and Joe reunited. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t changed. I quietly hoped that this new go-round of their relationship would implode within a year, but that hasn’t happened, and at this point, I’m pretty much resigned to having him around. I’m polite when I encounter him at my mother’s house, but that’s it. I haven’t made efforts to reconnect with his extended family.

This summer, Joe’s mother died unexpectedly. I knew this was hard for my brother and sister, and I had always liked Joe’s mother, even if we weren’t especially close, so I made sure to stop by the wake (although I didn’t attend the funeral; my husband and I already had plane tickets to visit his family in another state that weekend, but I wouldn’t have attended anyway). This was the first time I’d seen most of Joe’s family since he and my mom reunited. (I’d seen some of them at my sister’s graduation – post-divorce, pre-reconciliation – and we were mutually polite but distant.) At the funeral home, several of Joe’s relatives seemed surprised but happy to see me. I received (and awkwardly accepted) a few hugs, I got called “sweetie” by Joe’s dad, and one of Joe’s brothers introduced himself to my husband as “Uncle Alex.” Later, one of Joe’s sisters got my current address from my sister. I kind of felt like I was being welcomed back into the family – except, I don’t want to be part of this family!

I’m sure this won’t be the last time I’ll be together with Joe’s family members – I wouldn’t be surprised if his older kids started showing up at my mom’s during the holidays, and my brother recently announced his engagement, so there will be events related to that. I know I’m worrying about events that haven’t happened yet, but I don’t want to be caught off-guard in the moment. How can I draw boundaries with Joe’s relatives (and Joe, and my mom) to make it clear that I don’t consider Joe or his relatives my family?

— Not Your Daughter (she/her pronouns)

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