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“I’m not sure if I’m awkward because of this situation, or if it’s awkward because of me.”
It got me thinking about a rather weird situation I've faced a few times in the last month. I still haven't formulated a good reply to this going forward either.
You see a month ago I had a baby who has been legally adopted in a semi-open adoption. He's doing really well and growing at a rate of knots, his adoptive parents and one year old sibling love him to absolute bits and I am very happy with how the whole process went when he was born.
About a week after his birth, Lory and I were taking our evening walk and a nice family passing by stopped to talk with me while Lory greeted their dogs. The mom of the family asked me "When are you due?"
This question caught me off-guard because I had become accustomed to answering it according to the future due date. Of course I still looked 8 months pregnant and I suppose if I was carrying a newborn in my arms or in a baby wrap, this question would have been null and void. But there is no newborn being carried anywhere, so people assume I am still going to have a baby.
It's a rather awkward situation for me and in that particular instance, I just smiled and explained "I've actually already had the baby, I've still got a lot of deflating to do" and we kind of laughed about it. I am not sure which of us felt more awkward though.
When I was in Grade 8 at school, I made the mistake of asking my biology teacher when her baby was due....well she wasn't pregnant and that was the last time that I ever made that assumption because holy moly did she scream at me!
I'm not the type to scream at anyone and I am generally very good at remaining calm in almost all situations, but awkward? Well, I can do awkward really well.
Last week Lory and I needed to go to Oudtshoorn to collect some things from our storage unit and when we were leaving, we stopped to top up with petrol. The man that assisted us was very polite and maybe a bit too friendly. To me, what he said came across as a bit creepy and definitely brought on the awkward "Oh ok I need to leave right now" vibe.
He told me I must drive safely and he wished me the best of luck for giving birth to the baby and said that once I've had the baby I must come back and show him the kid. Ummmm no.
Again, considering the circumstances I can't really blame people for assuming that I'm still going to have the baby, but what do you even say in this situation? I just nodded and said "Thank you. Have a good day" before I hightailed it out of there feeling odd.
The first lady at least had the assumption corrected when I told her, but this dude - well I suppose I just decided it wasn't worth explaining so I just nodded, waved and got the hell out of there.
Every day that goes by, the situation is slightly different because now I probably only look 5 or 6 months pregnant. Two days ago, I decided to get take out burgers because it was late and I hadn't prepared anything to make for dinner. At the counter, the lady commented on how cute Lory is but the amount of patience that is required with children (while shaking her head - a very weird, out of nowhere comment I thought) and then mentioned the fact that I'm in for a challenge with a second one on the way.
Perhaps it was the way that she had phrased this comment, or perhaps it was that this was the third time that someone (a complete stranger!) had felt the compulsion to comment - either way, it got my back up and I felt annoyed. I just stated "Oh, I've already had the baby". Perhaps what she saw in that moment was a bit of resting bitch face or perhaps she could tell from my tone of voice, I'm not really sure, but she didn't continue with that topic of conversation and I was silently very glad.
How many people make assumptions like this in various situations each day? I can be awkward occasionally but this was just so bizarre for me and left me wondering if I need to have a better scripted answer for this type of comment or if I am just being a bit too sensitive and should just be better at letting it slide like water off a duck's back. All I know is that it made me feel weird and I don't like feeling weird like that. What would you have replied in that situation? I'd love to read in the comments, I'm sure that some of you will come up with comical responses.
I'm guilty of making assumptions too and I am very apologetic when I am corrected and admit I was wrong because it can lead to a lot of crappy issues when you are basing things on assumptions instead of facts. I've also acknowledged that perhaps it's our line of enquiry - do we ask the right questions? Do we maybe ask too many questions that we shouldn't or do we ask too few? Have people lost the ability to decide what might be an inappropriate topic of small talk? I don't know what it is, but sometimes it feels like "the rules of engagement" have changed....maybe I'm just old school?
