Social Living

Kung tutuusin, hindi na responsibilidad ng teachers kung may working group na ba tayo o hindi. We are, essentially, college students who should be capable of conducting ourselves responsibly towards different people. And if that necessitates dabbling in with other people, then so be it.

Pero sometimes (just sometimes), when desperate situations call for desperate solutions, the teacher does it anyway - assign you to a group so that you'll be done with it.

That is actually a dilemma - well, at least for me who is content at sitting down at the desk, putting on my geeky glasses (like I had one...), and just scribbling notes away. For me, group works are welcome additions to the course syllabus; but placed inside unfamiliar people and situations, I tend to just cower in a corner and just wait for the Heavens to intervene.

I am very apprehensive person. I embody the Minimax Principle of Relationship Development - if I know that the odds are against me, chances are, I wouldn't go with it. I really do not know why I am stricken by this apprehension disorder, when in fact there are only few things that I should be apprehensive about.

But somewhere along the way, I remember how I grew up as a kid. As a Grade School student, people shunned me in one corner because they thought that I was 'mayabang' for my own worth. Back then, I had no idea what 'mayabang' was, let alone being the Tagalog equivalent of 'arrogance'. But to say 'I am mayabang because of so-and-so' was really something I could not understand.

I had no mental model on which to qualify my supposed arrogance. That's why it's a shock to me to find other people say, "just look at Jem, he's the mayabang..." because for me, I find it baseless and absurd. What may look as arrogance could actually be thought of as simply confidence and poise. Nevertheless, I got by my Grade School days in that light. I did have friends, though, but I wasn't part of the 'in' or the so-called 'cool' crowd. I wasn't part of the jocks, or the people (usually at the back) who have a knack for one-line laugh lines. I never dared say my mind, lest I experience the long hoots typical of a La Salle Green Hills Grade School (and even High School) student - the "weh!" phenomenon.

Because it is such a pain to be 'weh!'-ed in class, you just keep those thoughts to yourself. The saying is indeed true: the more you repress it, the wilder it spirals out in the future. So with that basic experiences, I learned how to control myself - yes, sometimes to the point of repression.

If I can attribute it, Grade School and High School are actually years of volatility. Whatever people perceive of you during those times will be reflective of how you may act in the future. In my case, people did look up to me for my pseudo-human capacities, but to say I'm one of them is a rather different story.

So that's how I might have caught the apprehension syndrome. And I must admit that it's crippling me because I can't be as perky as I want to be because of these apprehensions. Loosening up is an option, yes; pero, I realized that loosening up happens mostly in situations you're most comfortable with. If you're not comfortable with a certain crowd, then why try so hard being someone you can't be?

But then again, my apprehension should be something I part with if I want to live a happy social life. Spontaneity is something that I need to master because I was deprived of the ability to be spontaneous during my formative years. It's interesting that it's only now that I learn how to make random comments out of seemingly incongruous factoids.

So then, my apprehension syndrome really has to find an end.

And let it be in me.