'Til Sweat Drop Down My...

I have a sweating problem.  Nothing has been able to cure it - I've trimmed my armpit hair, used anti-perspirant (ha!), even avoided talking to girls.

But none of these worked.  It's because my sweating is related to anxiety.  But it's not my anxiety.  I sweat for other people.  Let me explain.

The symbol of the awk

As someone who was nicknamed "Awk" in high school and had a hand gesture to accompany it (see right), I am fully aware of awkwardness in all its aspects.  Today, I believe I have mostly outgrown the "awk" in me, but the experience still dwells within me. As such, I feel deep, deep empathy for "awks" today because I see myself in them.  As a result, I become anxious for them as they stumble through society and end up sweating myself. So other people's social anxiety becomes my social anxiety.

An example to illustrate this: we are presenting our research in my writing class, and this kid today was killing me - "um" after every sentence, shifting back and forth, rapid arm movements, looking down at notes.  It was painful, not to mention he went over the time limit yet was completely unaware of this and still had multiple slides left.  I was dying inside for this poor soul and suffering outside in the form of another wet shirt.

It's just not limited to fellow "awks" though, I sweat in anticipation of or during any potentially awkward situation.  If a professor asks a question and no one is answering, I feel awkward for that professor and might raise my hand to rescue him/her, but in the process actually don't know what I'm going to talk about so I stumble over my words and end up sweating even more.

This is why I wear dark clothing.