An Embarassing Tale

                                   
I have a friend who never gets embarrassed.


She baffles me quite frankly. I get very embarrassed, very often, probably at least once a day.

Now, my friend, let’s call her *Jane is in many ways your very typical, happy go-lucky young woman. She’s a total Sanguine, always upbeat, extremely down to earth and almost annoyingly constantly cheerful.

On the day she made this revelation about herself, we were having one of those nostalgic conversations where you reminisce about your secondary school years and all the antics you got up to back then. The chores you skipped, illegal provisions you snuck in, boys you totally ignored because you secretly had a crush on, etcetera, etcetera. She’d just concluded a story on some particularly wild behavior that landed her and her friends in trouble; the school authorities had brought them before the whole assembly the following morning in a bid to punish them through ridicule.

“Oh my gosh” I said “you must have been so humiliated, I’d have been”

At this she shrugged “Nope”

Really?

Then she tells me that she’s never been embarrassed in her entire life. “Honestly Mimi, I don’t really get it when people say they’re embarrassed, I have no clue what they’re talking about. It’s not an emotion I’ve ever felt”

I am stunned. Then she asks me what kinds of things humiliate me; lots of things actually, being called out for deviant behavior in front of a crowd of my peers for example.

“What else”?

Being nabbed mental stalking, being caught in a fib, bumping into an old secondary school rival at an event where she looks totally glam, and you’re having a bad hair and everything else day (not saying it happened to me, I’m just ‘ahem’ saying, you know?) Loads of things

“Why”?

“Why what”?

“Why do I feel embarrassed when any of these things happen to me”?

“Well, because any normal person would”?

She objects to this, “I’m normal and I never get embarrassed” she said.

So I start to really think about it, and when I’m done, I believe I have the answer.

I think it has more to do with the fact that my minor choleric nature has perfectionist tendencies, which puts pressure on me to be perfectly behaved at all times. Whenever I feel like I’ve dropped the ball, or not lived up to my standards, the result is instant mortification.

It seems I need to learn to give myself a break. I am not perfect and God doesn’t expect me to be, He only wants me to strive towards it.

In a bid to do this, and become more like my friend, I shall from hence forth adopt the following behavior/attitude:

1. I shall no longer tell fibs:

Quite frankly, there is no such thing as a white lie. Telling your best friend “No, creating a fake FaceBook personality/profile so you can track your ex’s every ‘like’ is not creepy at all!” or, in a conversation with your colleagues claiming that “of course you’d date a homeless guy in a heartbeat if he was really, super nice, after all, It’s the love that truly counts”, is actually an outright lie. Having such fibs exposed can leave you (or your best friend) feeling extremely ashamed.



2. I shall always be perfectly put together /poised at social gatherings:

Yes. I shall ensure that I have my game on at all times. From now on, prior to any event where I suspect that there maybe obnoxious members of the Nigerian Paparazzi, or, that I know is likely to be a gathering for young, upwardly mobile, city dwellers, I shall arrive prepared. What’s five or six hours of facials, manicures, pedicures, massages, waxing, stringing, plucking, pulling shaving and flat ironing/curling of my hair extensions (Erm, Peruvian, no less) if it saves me the humiliation of been seated beside a former School Senior/Bully looking anything less than Chic?



3. I will no longer feel the need to explain myself at all times:

If you happen to live in my apartment building, and you frequently see me stumbling home at 12am on Saturday mornings, you can choose to assume that I’ve been very, very, naughty that weekend. I really will cease to be bothered by this, as I know that any attempt to explain that I may be coming back form a church organized activity for workers will be met with unbelieving smirks and knowing winks. I know what I did last weekend, and trust me; it was far less exciting than you think.



4. I will desist from any behavior that may result in my being called out in front of my organization, to be used as an example of how not to behave and break company ethics. Being led away to the back of a Black Maria Van by the EFCC while over two thousand people, may of whom know me look on is not what I consider the best way to learn a lesson in “How not to care about others opinions of you”

At the end of the day, that would just be plain embarrassing.

Cheers