Awkward

I'll let you in on a little secret........

I am a big dork. Shocker, I know!

I know I am. I think I probably always have been but I used to be really good at denial. I don't make a good first- or 10th- impression. Computers are easy. I can make friends over the internet with ease. Why? Because I can read over and over the things I write before I hit send and edit the flow stupid things I say so that I sound somewhat less than crazy.
Making friends in person? I have no idea how to do this. It may start out well. I make eye contact with another mom at the library and we make small talk about which is better Walter the Farting Dog or Dog Breath: The Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis. We realize we live only a few blocks from each other, our kids are close to the same age, and we begin talking play dates. But it's inevitable. I say something incredibly obnoxious, like about how we think farting is an Olympic sport, and suddenly I'm standing there alone with my copy of Harold and The Purple Crayon cursing my broken filter.
Even when I think I get it right, I'll go home and realize that I blew it.
I once tried giving myself 30 seconds before speaking what I was thinking- as opposed to the instant verbal vomiting I usually do- but this only gave me more time to come up with something stupid to announce. Like how I can't go to the bathroom without first looking in the toilet to make sure a snake isn't going to come up and bite me in the ass because stupid me watched the stupid news and saw that guy who found a python in his bathroom. And you know that look people get when they think you have lost your marbles and may start shooting up the place at any moment? Because I do.
I once tried to meet up with some friends I had been chatting with for a few years. I dragged Mr X and Girl X with me in hopes that I'd be less inclined to speak. I left thinking I had been ok. I hadn't said anything too terribly stupid. I actually stayed up for awhile that night analyzing the things I said (I did mention I was a dork right?) and thought that I had finally gotten it right. And then it dawned on me that the reason I didn't say many horribly stupid and obnoxious things is because I kept shoveling food in my mouth like a moron. Why these people still talk to me? Um. Maybe because they're too polite to tell me to just shut up already?
Even when I manage to get past that point or find someone who thinks I'm just a little quirky instead of weird and maybe a little scary, eventually they're going to meet my MIL or some other member of my family and there is just no explaining that.
I won't even talk on the phone to most people because not only do I still say stupid things, but it's like I suddenly forget that they can hear everything I say, so if I run into Mr X while talking, I'll start telling him about Girl X's monster poop and the person on the other end of the phone is all "Ew! I was just about to eat!"
And maybe it's because I don't really know what to say so I just start saying anything that comes to mind. Unfortunately most of the stuff that comes to my mind, is kind of gross and certainly strange.
I am much better suited to this. Because at least here, when I start talking about my dad's battle with the chipmunk it's kind of funny, instead of really sad.