Why I hate ice-breakers

Confession: I have been known to skip social events if I anticipate “ice-breakers” there.

So this one time two and a bit years ago (actually can I just round that up to three years to distance myself from the event please?) it was the start of second year of college, and it was the first Christian Union meeting of the new academic year. For the sake of the newly starting AS students we had ice-breakers. It was the “Tell people two truths and a lie about yourself and they guess what the lie is” game. I could not think of stuff on the spot just like that, especially not when I ended up having to play it in a group with a guy I had had the worst crush of my life on for like a year so far (and been too awk to talk to). I had written poems and diary entries galore about this guy, drawn his name in bubble writing, got into cheesy songs I previously had hated, the whole cringey lot, so now I was embarrassed before it even got to my turn to try and spin some witty little truths and lies.

I let the two other guys say theirs first obvs. I knew both of them already because we had been in the same English Language in the previous academic year. They were good mates with each other by now but I didn’t sit so near

I saw Family at Christmas and it was Interesting

So we got invited to meet up with some extended family for what I realised was the first time in my life around Christmas/ New Year’s (let’s start the post on a melodramatic note, why not?).

I feel like I’m still adjusting to actually knowing these relatives. I only saw them a couple of times before Age 12 and in the nine years since then, I’ve only seen them very occasionally. After this age and especially after age 16 I was of course getting very socially awkward. I’ve had social anxiety around this lot in particularly quite badly, and that’s possibly because I’ve been so anxious for them to get a good impression of me. And they are a family of ten siblings while I’m awkward penguin only child.

Anyway, this is how it went.

We went first to my cousin C’s farmhouse where she lives with her husband and kids. At first the three of us were stood in her kitchen talking to her. My mum and C get along really well. To her and and the other relatives this side my Dad is regarded as an oddball (that’s the main reason I’m aware of for aforementioned fallouts) when in fact he has mild Asperger’s and an intellectual, quirky personality that just contrasts dramatically with their practical, straight-thinking personalities. And from their perspective, I must be the