What makes awkward people awkward?

My second roommate moved out yesterday, which inspired this blog delving into the subject of awkwardness. She was a lovely roommate - clean, polite, willing to share food and respectful of my habits and wishes. She returned to Wales yesterday after I helped her lug her 50 lb bag and 25lb backpack to the bus station at 6:30am. I was sad to see her go but not because I will be lonely - I prefer to live alone - but because I couldn't have had a better roommate from a compatibility perspective.

The quirky thing about her was just that - she was quirky. Better put, she was awkward. I've been around plenty of awkward people in my life, notably in upper level math classes in high school (although there were a few at Dartmouth, as well). I've always thought of myself as a compassionate and patient person and I generally get along well with them. But I can't help but feel awkward as well.

What types of things does an "awkward" person do, you might ask? The most notable thing, to me, is the complete lack of fluidity in a conversation. Typically, a conversation with an awkward will go like this:

Awkward: Hiya.
Me: Hello. How was class today?
A: A bit exhausting really. (2 second pause in which Awkward appears on the cusp of saying something) I'm probably going to go straight to bed.
M: Why was it so exhausting?
A: Oh. (Another 2 second pause) I'm not sure really. (1 second) It just was.

Now what do you say to that? In hindsight, it seems like it'd be really easy to say, "Oh I'm sorry, can I get you a cup of tea" or "Yeah, I have days like that sometimes" but for whatever reason, at the moment, I'm speechless. I seriously can't think of anything to say.

That's really unusual for me. Typically I do very well in scripted conversations like "how was your day" or "what's your name/where are you from." But the remarkable thing about awkward people is that they make me awkward too. I can't think of anything to say. And I hate uncomfortable silences (although not as much as Rawson Daniel, who will make up ridiculous excuses like having a class at midnight to leave a conversation after 1/4 second of silence) so I often just try to disappear before the silence gets too long.

In addition to the stagnated conversation flow, awkward people exhibit other common characteristics as well. One in particular is clumsiness and the tendency to get oneself into awkward physical situations. Within 5 minutes of meeting her Alice swatted a full glass of water halfway across the room while making a wildly uncontrolled hand gesture. Her first laundry experience ended in her opening the door to the washer while it was still in cycle, causing a sudsy flooding of the bathroom and kitchen. She says it's quite common of her to be like that and I would agree with that statement. The question is why is she like this? Is it genetic? Is it a learned reaction to society?

There's a number of facebook groups dealing with the subject, and given the healthy number of members, awkwards tend to know and accept that they are awkward. The group "Holy Shit I'm awkward!" has the following description:

You stare at the ground to avoid premature eye contact, you trip over yourself, you can never decide whether or not to say hi to someone when you see them for the third time that day, you laugh at your own jokes, you don't know when to cross the street, every conversation you have has an uncomfortably long pause, and worst of all, you always point it out.

Without really having data to back this up, I'd guess that awkward people tend to also be quite bright. That may be not true, but it certainly seems that it is. Alice is very bright, as were every awkward person I met at Dartmouth and in high school.

I have this theory that we're all given equal amounts of abilities and disabilities. It's as if every possible trait - from height to kindness, metabolism to faithfulness, willpower to boob size were scaled from 1-100. The sum total of everyone's traits would be the same number. The reason that some people are more successful, liked, or happy than others is generally due to the culture's relative value placed on their good traits. So someone with the intellectual capacity of a fruit fly can be wildly successful if his society places value on size and he's 6'9", 315 (NFL offensive linemen). Likewise, someone who 3,000 years ago would have been devoured in his youth by a formidable beast because of his lack of physical strength can become famously successful (Bill Gates). The assumption would be that being awkward is another trait, and some people get more of it than others. I just wonder if there's a society where awkwardness is an advantage...

But I don't really know. And I got tired of searching for answers on google. So I'm going to rather awkwardly end this entry without having really said anything or concluded it properly.