Danny ChaiI once had a conversation with a friend about a mutual acquaintance where we talked about how when we first met this person, this person ignored us (in different contexts) for quite some time. So, it kind of became an inside joke between us. So one year, when this friend sent me a Christmas card, this friend made a mention of the acquaintance, ha ha, funny.
So, I went to the FiCS Winter Retreat before school started that year, and some of us were sitting around the table talking, including the acquaintance who used to ignore me, and somehow this topic came up. And for some idiotic reason, I decide to mention to the acquaintance how my friend, whom the acquaintance does not really know well, mentioned the acquaintance in a Christmas card to me. And, it’s a little bit uncomfortable, and a person who knew about this inside joke (or maybe not, but knew both the friend and the acquaintance) was shooting looks my way saying “stop”.
But not only don’t I stop, but I decide to prove it by going and getting the said card, which is in my bag. So I did, and it just made everyone uncomfortable, and added crazy amounts of uncomfortability between the friend and the acquaintance, who did not know each other well, for quite some time. I don’t know what I was thinking. Seriously, sometimes the lack of judgment I have is astounding. It’s terrible.
Another time, we were at All Campus Retreat, and some of us were sitting around a table, and I started talking about this thing a friend of mine did that was in poor taste. The thing is, this friend’s significant other was there. And, as I’m talking about it, this friend is I think shooting looks at me to stop, and as usual I don’t, I keep it going, keep it going until I’ve gone too far. And then I realize I’ve said too much, and think to myself, “oops.” I then excuse myself from the table and this friend and significant other proceed to have an hours long conversation because of what I said.
Another time, a bunch of us were hanging out in a lounge in Stern, and I ask this person, just jokingly, why this person doesn’t go for a mutual friend. You know, I insinuate all the time, not really seriously. And I keep prodding and ask if this person likes the mutual friend. And the person says, “I can say that I do not at this time like” the person.
And the person is obviously trying to say something, signal to me, but I’m too dumb to pick it up, and I say something like, “Ooh! So that means you might have liked” the mutual friend “sometime in the past?” And I keep pushing it pushing it pushing it, asking more and more about it. And the thing is, this mutual friend’s sibling is in the room also. And then suddenly I realize that there is something there, that other people in the room knew but I didn’t, and they probably didn’t want to talk about it because said sibling was in the room, and when I realize this, I stop talking, and I think to myself, “oops”. As always, just when I’ve carried it too far. And it’s quiet for a while.
Then the person and the mutual friend’s sibling proceed to talk about it for a long time. Meanwhile, me and another friend are trying to loudly talk to each other, to show that we’re not trying to listen in on their conversation and eventually I get too tense that I scurry off to the bathroom. Oops.