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I don’t play well with others if I don’t know you.  Hell if you ask some of my friends they’d probably say I don’t play well with you even if I do know you.  It’s not because I’m mean, I just don’t do new people very well, I keep guards up and watch your every move like a hungry, rabid dog that thinks you’re about to run off with its bone.   There are a handful of people that have managed to wear me down, but other than that I stick to myself.   God must’ve been sick of my ish and felt it was time to shock my lone wolf behind in a big way so last month he decided it was time for me to get uncomfortable.

It all started innocently enough, me reading a blog that lead to me to another blog, that led me to a blog featured here on Clutch, Nomadness TV, and that is where the story really began.   Before I knew it I was signing up for Facebook (yes I know I was the only person alive or dead who didn’t have an account) just to join the closed Nomadness Tribe group.  In a matter of days I went from lurking in the shadows to engaging with these strangers, to going to a meet up…alone (no non-members were allowed so I couldn’t bring the usual back up that keeps you from having to meet anyone new) to spending New Year’s Eve drinking and laughing with a bunch of people whose real names I’m still trying to remember.  Sitting in a corner and hiding doesn’t work with these people, they find you and talk to you, want to know all about you, take pictures of and with you and just want to fill you with that ooey gooey love that would otherwise make you sick, but for some reason you can’t explain you like them so the gooey is okay.

Trust me when I say I’ve never been so far out of my element!  It was seriously system overload for me, everything I’ve ever tried to avoid socially got thrown at me hard.  I was so uncomfortable at the meet up that I felt constipated…gross but true.  I literally sat in one corner all night and STILL managed to meet like 10 new people.  Thought I could make a break for it when the event was over, oh hell no.  Not only did I end up at a Turkish place with three women I didn’t know, eating meat offered to us by four old men with an affinity for sistas and who we swore were in some kind of Turkish mob, but I ended up at a bar with most of the group until 3am!

Anyone that knows me knows I avoid these types of situations like the plague, even with my friends.  I don’t want you to get to know me, I don’t want to be friends and I damn sure don’t want to take pictures.  But for some reason I didn’t worry (well worry too much) about those things with this group.  It seemed perfectly logical to spend one of the biggest nights of the year with “the strangers from the internet” as my father so kindly described them after giving me a code word to use just in case they turned out to be crazy and I needed help.   Vacations with you?  Why sure, let’s go!  Pictures?  Yup, smile for the camera!

Who the hell am I?!

Eh, I’m still me, just a bit freer.  I spent so much time being uncomfortable about being uncomfortable, when it turns out being uncomfortable isn’t so bad at all.  I do play nice with others and I’ve got at least 30 or 40 “strangers from the internet” that can prove it!  It took me a LONG time to creep my way out of my comfort zone (ok God threw me out of the zone…same thing) but I’m glad I did.  Not only did I grow a little and overcome something that in some way was holding me back, but I met a bunch of strangers, who are fast becoming amazing, life changing friends and there’s definitely nothing scary or uncomfortable about that.

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