Being an awkward person sucks. Not because people think you’re weird, it’s because you think it’s weird to say something or do something then end up not doing anything at all. There have been many instances where I’ve wanted to do activities like actually participate in class or even as small as talk to someone. I just never had the confidence to. Even when I’m attending college, I have a hard time social interacting with others because of my social anxiety. ”Once, as my friend and I were talking about our day, he said to me, “Tyler, you are so awkward” I asked him why and he said it was the way I word things. I guess I have a hard time wording things.
I remember this one time where I was pitching keyword ideas for Loco Mag. This was during the start of the “Good God, We’re Unc” issue. We had to find keywords that were related to the GenZ slang word “unc.” All of these people were giving out good keywords and I wanted to help. So I pitched in the keyword “chud”. Chud, according to Merriam Webster Dictionary, means a fool, jerk, troll, etc. And I’m thinking, a chud is like an unc. I found out about that word from “Tiktok Slang” and people were constantly saying it online, and I thought it was a funny word. So, someone who’s a chud would be related to someone who is lazy or a bum. So I said it to the class and everyone was either confused or offended. They asked what I thought it meant and I froze up. This one person gasped and said “chud” was a really bad word. I asked what it meant, but they kept on saying you don’t want to know. They just kept on gatekeeping it and it made me feel worse than it was supposed to be. I later researched what it meant to that person who was offended and apparently it meant “someone who is rude/boorish/regressive/unintelligent/etc”. I guess I can see how it would offend someone, but I thought chud meant someone who’s a bum. I have a bad tendency to hear about something and ride with it until someone points out that I’m wrong. “Oh, but Tyler, wouldn’t you research the word first before you start using it?” I mean yeah of course I should, but I don’t. After that day, I gave up on participating in basically anything. What if I screw up again and say something to offend someone again? Maybe within time, I’ll be more comfortable or less awkward. But regardless, it definitely sounded better in my head.
Feature image by Wolfgang Hasselmann on Unsplash
