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This is coming from a person with real-life experience on the subject. I’ll be writing more posts on individual scenarios, including, but not limited to: public restrooms, shopping, and older folks. Those will come in later months, or if you’re lucky, in a few weeks!

Most of these tips pertain to speaking and presence, but there are a few other things we can talk about, like online. I’ll be following it up in another blog post as well. Here we go!

1. First, acknowledge that you’re awkward. Everybody’s awkward, and that’s totally fine! It’s much easier to hide your awkwardness if you’re aware of it. There’s no use to trying to say that you’re not awkward–that’ll just make you sound awkward. Let’s move on.
2. Don’t laugh after everything you say. There’s little more awkward than somebody who laughs after every sentence, even if what he said wasn’t particularly funny. It leave the listeners with the question, “was he joking?” Then they will default to not laughing with you. Laughing in a group of people who aren’t also laughing is…well, awkward. You can break this rule if you’re already in the middle of making people laugh.
3. Limit the self-deprecating jokes unless you are absolutely sure you know the people around you know you’re that joking. If you’re constantly putting yourself down, you’ll eventually get pitied–people will stop thinking you’re joking and take your self-deprecation seriously. Pity is not what you want, especially if you’re trying not to be awkward. Pity will make people avoid you. That’s awkward.
4. Be aware of the atmosphere. You won’t do very well, making jokes at funerals or bawling my yourself in a restaurant or something like that. There’s an appropriate time and place for everything; when in doubt, watch and see what other people are doing, and try to emulate them.
5. Next, importantly, speak loudly and clearly. This will do two things: it will make people hear you very well. This, in turn, will make you commit to what you say, and then, this will make you carefully consider what you say before you say it. This brings me to my next point.
6. Rehearse internally. It’s easy to just blurt whatever comes to mind, but in many cases (if you’re awkward like me), it won’t make any sense. If you’re not sure of what you’re going to say or how you’re going to say it, take a step back and figure it out before going back in. Try to predict how people will respond to what you say, and see if you can plan a response to the most likely scenarios. Be willing to improvise, as well.
7. Practice. Constantly put yourself in positions where you feel awkward, but then use these easy steps to convince them that you’re not awkward! It’s rare that you get better at something by just studying it; you’ll have to put it into practice. Math problems require exercises for mastery; awkwardness requires social immersion for reduction.
8. Last, and perhaps the most fun, embrace the awkward. If you think you can do well by enhancing the awkwardness and putting it on other people, do it! I know a surprising number of people who strive on awkward humor. Awkward people come together in unity to make these huge groups of awkwardness. If you want to try to use this humor to your advantage, give it a shot! It’s super fun.

There you have it: my first “guide” on how to convince people you aren’t awkward. Leave a comment if you’ve got suggestions, specifics on execution, or if you think you’ve got a better list of requirements. I’m curious to know how you guys deal with awkwardness!

I know this is really random, but as I get older and interact with more people, I find myself opting for the fist bump more and more. At first it was just because I found it more comfortable, but as I kept doing it, I realized it’s far more than that now–I believe it should replace the handshake altogether. Here are the reasons:

1. Ambiguity
   Is it a handshake? Is it a wave? Is it a high-five? Is it a “gangsta” angled-highfive into chestbump thing? Truth is, there are already too many greetings that use an open-handed approach. It’s obvious that it’s time to move on, and the only thing you can mistake a fistbump for is an act of violence, and when you realize it isn’t, you can safely proceed to finish the bump.
2. Varying Styles
   With the handshake, you’re confined to just the right hand-to-right hand or left hand-to-left hand, but the fist bump is not so confined. There’s a limitless number of ways you can fist bump someone–it doesn’t just have to be one-handed to one-handed. Behind the back, over the shoulder, between the legs…your only limit is your imagination.
3. Formality (or more generously, “atmosphere-changing”)
   While I wouldn’t recommend fist bumping your, say, future mother-in-law (unless she’s super duper hip), there’s something to be noted about how a fist bump diffuses tension in professional settings. Sure, it doesn’t exactly bring you up to their level of professionalism, but it does show that you’re comfortable where you are, even if you aren’t. But use discretion when you’re meeting someone for the first time. Make a judgement call, because it’ll always be a gamble. It also makes old people feel young, like they don’t usually deserve to receive fist bumps or something. It’s weird.
4. Cleanliness
   Fourth, and perhaps most important, is that a fist bump is much cleaner than a handshake. The palm of your hand is absolutely disgusting. It’s constantly touching things like your phone (when was the last time you sanitized that?) and your hair and your keyboard and ugh. When you shake somebody’s hand, you’re basically saying, “here, have all the filth I’ve accumulated on my skin since the last time I washed my hands.” Hopefully the person you just shook hands with isn’t carrying any disease, or else you’ll certainly be getting it yourself.
   There have actually been studies on the cleanliness of handshakes vs. fist bumps. If you don’t believe me, go look them up yourself. In your search, you’ll also find a bunch of articles saying the same thing that I am right now.
5. Perfectly awkward
   Without a doubt, my favorite part about fist bumping someone is seeing how people react when I offer them one when they’re not expecting it. Usually it’s some combination between fear and an awkward smile. It’s even better when you both raise your arms and the other person is expecting some other sort of greeting. I find that the results are more amusing than I care to admit.

tl;dr: read the bold words above.

So go ahead, go out and start using the fist bump in place of the handshake, and see if I’m wrong. I’m here to change the culture of the world one fist bump at a time. [other closing words here]

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Can’t help but notice that journalism is moving away from text articles and lists and to video instead. Next blog post idea?

Maybe I should stop promising to post “later this month” because I’ve now I’ve completely missed the month of April. Anyway.

I think I’m finally starting to understand what it’s like to be an adult. These past few months have been a lot of firsts for me, and I’ve gone through a lot and my mindset has changed quite a bit since I graduated. I’m starting to see the appeal of money, starting to care (a tiny bit) about appearance, starting to feel like I need to be liked…

In short, I’m starting to grow up. And you know what? It’s not as fun as people make it out to be. I’m resistant to change. I hate change. I want to be able to sit on my bum all day during the summer and play video games from noon to sunrise the next day. I want to live off my mom’s food and money I get from Christmas.

I want a lot of things, and growing up isn’t one of them.

But I know I have to, so I won’t put it off. It’s better to start becoming a responsible adult now, than being stunted and trying to force myself to become one when the need arises. We’ve got too many immature men out there now anyhow. I don’t want to be one of them.

Okay, I lied. I didn’t write another post last month. Sorry for lying. I had an idea for a post but I don’t remember it now. It must not have been–never mind, I remember. I’ll post it later this month.

I was recently (like this morning, in the shower) thinking about how I learn how to do new things. I’ve been going through a phase where I’ve been constantly trying to improve my current skills and learn new ones. Improving old skills has basically been a period of grinding: repeated trials, self-observation and minor tweaking. Most of us do this without thinking about it; you get better at cooking, cleaning, driving, speaking, whatever. Just by doing those things.

But picking up a new skill doesn’t come around as often as you’d think. When was the last time you tried something new? If it was recent, think about how good you are at that thing and how much better you could be at it. How much time did you spend at getting as good as you are? If you spent more time doing it, how much better can you get, and how fast?

In my last few months in this phase, I’ve learned that the easiest way to start learning something is by comparing it to something you already know. For example, I’ve learned how to play about 10 new board games in the past few months, but I’ve had the benefit of being able to compare each new board game with one that I already know. The best name I’ve come up with for naming this process is “metaphorical learning” (admittedly, I didn’t try very hard to come up with a name).

What if I want to learn something in a completely new area? What if I want to learn to cook beef stroganoff without any prior knowledge of cooking (which is basically me right now)? I Well, I think there’s still some metaphorical learning to be done. The execution of any skill is a process, and each part of a process can be compared with another process of a skill you may already know.

So if you’re ever having trouble learning to do something new, try to think of how it can relate to something else you know. It’ll make the learning process a whole lot easier.

This month’s lesson is on communication.

Ah, communication. The pinnacle of the human race. We wouldn’t be here without our incredible ability to communicate with one another, to pass ideas around with little effort. Our language and our communication is one of the most important developments of humanity.

Yet I find that many have trouble with communication. Maybe they lack the ability to express themselves coherently, or maybe they simply don’t think they need to communicate in the first place, or even somewhere in between. In any case, communication becomes lacking and people are left wondering whether it was on purpose, and if not, then what the speaker was trying to say at all.

I will admit that I find myself at fault of this somtimes, especially with updating my mom with where I am. I simply don’t think it’s important enough that I tell her where I am, so I just leave her in the dark about it.

Recently I realized that if someone as important to me as I am to my mother decided not to keep me in the loop, I’d be furious. I used to think my mom was being a nuisance but now I understand what she’s been frustrated about. Communication is important in family, work and church life and it’s best if you use it.

The question remains: is it possible to overcommunicate? It’s possible to talk a lot but there’s a difference between talking loud and saying something. I’m still trying to figure out the line in the middle.

That’s it for today. I’ll post again this month.