extroverted <\/li>\n<\/ol>\nGregarious? Outgoing? Anyone who knows me realizes that I can be very talkative once I get to know someone. The catch has always been that until I get to know them, I have historically been unable to talk at all. That has always made meeting people a challenge. What is different, I guess, is that lately I have been able to talk to strangers too. <\/span><\/p>\nWhy?<\/span><\/p>\nPractice. Seriously. For two months, every Tuesday I went to the growler store and forced myself to talk to whoever sat next to me and to the servers. Easy, right? They were serving beer. I like to talk about beer! I talked to married men about their wives. I talked to an 75 year old man about his career as a pilot and current job driving a wine tasting party bus. <\/span><\/p>\nIt was kind of hard, but fun. I suppose it was good for me. I was in training for the inevitable dating. <\/span><\/p>\nI suck<\/i> at dating. <\/span><\/p>\nOr maybe I don’t–after all, I am not introverted\/shy\/awkward now. I am charming and gregarious. <\/span><\/p>\nWho knew?<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the last month, I have had people say things after meeting me for the first time that sort of surprise me. In a good way. In a way that makes me think that all the trouble I’ve taken to try to be more engaged in life might actually be doing some good. The following … Continue reading What people tell me about myself<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-2tb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11334,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=11334","url_meta":{"origin":9497,"position":0},"title":"Art, slurs and euphemisms","author":"Michelle","date":"March 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"You scumbag, you maggot You cheap lousy faggot Happy Christmas your arse I pray God it's our last --the Pogues\/Fairytale of New York Being a person of the recently single variety, I logged into OKCupid a week or so ago to update my profile. I had totally forgotten that my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9855,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=9855","url_meta":{"origin":9497,"position":1},"title":"Upcoming wordaversary","author":"Michelle","date":"April 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"In just a few days, the blog will hit 300,000 words. Well over 715 posts in about 21 months.\u00a0 Most of the posts are mediocre at best. Going back to the first several months, back in the Summer of 2013, I can see how rough it was. I didn't know\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7318,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=7318","url_meta":{"origin":9497,"position":2},"title":"How to tell if someone likes you…you know…that way…","author":"Michelle","date":"September 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The other night I was chatting with a newly single friend, and we touched on some of the difficulties of meeting people. His biggest problem is that women flock to him without any effort on his part. He hasn't ever really had to go after a woman. Hey. It's a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1341,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=1341","url_meta":{"origin":9497,"position":3},"title":"More than words","author":"Michelle","date":"September 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Poor head Can hardly move my lips for speaking I said So, what is this thing I cannot explain? I'd blame all the things I feel but can't quite place Perhaps they're written on my face Someone took the words away --Elvis Costello\/Someone Took The Words Away \u00a0 \u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9232,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=9232","url_meta":{"origin":9497,"position":4},"title":"An imaginary conversation about a first meeting","author":"Michelle","date":"February 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"How will I recognize you? You've seen several pictures of me. I'll look like the person in my pictures, and I am wearing black today. You and half the city True. Look for the colorful chest. I thought you were coming straight from work? I am--so? Are you going to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Imaginary Conversation"","block_context":{"text":"Imaginary Conversation","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=18"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3874,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=3874","url_meta":{"origin":9497,"position":5},"title":"Say what?","author":"Michelle","date":"February 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"My mind swirls around. Whorls, whirls Hurricane cyclone vortex Ideas words imaginary conversations fall down to the bottom And float into the whirl again Conversations that never happened Wish they had not Wish they would Harsher words Kinder words More loving More hateful More tearful More forgiveness? What do you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}