Writing Buddy

February 18, 2013:
Adam and I met for the first time today, and the entire rendezvous can be summed up in one word: awkward. When I arrived at Union Court, I sent him a text to let him know I was there. Since there were several girls sitting alone in the surrounding area I expected a response from him asking for a clue as to which unaccompanied girl I was, but mere seconds later someone came up behind me and asked if I was Jill. Indeed I am!
As someone who deals with severe social anxiety, I always make sure to prepare myself for encounters such as this one. I had some conversation topics prepared, several open-ended questions to ask in case the conversation lacked, I made sure the meeting would take place somewhere that I'm comfortable (Union Court is like a home away from home for me), and I did my yoga breathing beforehand. I had taken all of the necessary steps to ensure a successful first meeting. Subsequently, I was flabbergasted when it started off bad and kept getting worse. I burned through all of my conversation topics and questions far faster than I thought I would, and there were quite a few awkward silences. I did get to know a few things about him, though, so it wasn't a total loss.
Adam is a sophomore who's currently a communications major, but he plans on switching to journalism. He's hoping to end up with a career in sports journalism, and he's especially interested in basketball. I was hoping he'd say football since that's my area of expertise, but no such luck. Actually, any sport other than basketball would have worked. Of course his favorite sport had to be the one that I know absolutely nothing about. Adam's a New Hampshire native (I can't remember which particular town he hails from), and we both chose UNH because we fell in love with the beautiful trees and brick buildings that populate the campus.
Hopefully the awkwardness of our first meeting was a direct result of nerves. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and wishing for more successful, comfortable meetings from now on.
I'm going to see him again on March 4, and he's going to bring me the article he handed in this past Wednesday so we can take a look at it together.

February 15, 2013:
Adam emailed me back this morning, we exchanged numbers, and we're going to meet on Monday at 3:10.

February 14, 2013:
Today I emailed my writing buddy to set up a time and place for our first meeting. It's been years since I got to email an AOL account, so that was pretty exciting for me. I may or may not have had a few middle school flashbacks.