Social Awkardness

I'm going to confess something. Again. But I'll only make this confession if you all promise not to make fun of me. If you're the sort that will poke fun at someone when they're baring their soul to you, then perhaps you should skip this post. Thanks.   

All right. Now that they're gone, I can speak freely.   

I am not always the most social person. I can be very shy. I am actually pretty good mingling in a group of strangers - as long as we're all on the same page and no one knows each other, I can mingle really well! But when people have already made groups, and *I* am the only stranger, I can't seem to force myself to break into the already-formed groups.   

Another aspect of my social awkwardness is that I never know how to broach the topic of my half-desi life.  

Imagine that you go somewhere and meet with a group of people and two or three of them are desi. I can't just blurt out "Oh, HEY! My husband is Pakistani!!!" First, what do they care? Second, maybe they're Nepalese for all I know? Perhaps they're Bangladeshi and their entire family suffered at the hands of Pakistanis in the 1971 conflict? Third, I'm afraid they'll think "What - does she think she's desi too? and fourth, see above: shy.

Basically, just because some is desi, or looks desi, doesn't mean they care that my husband is desi.  

But if I don't announce that my life has a Pakistani link to it, I run the risk of it becoming weirder and weirder as I go along. What if I become best friends with this person, and a year down the road they're blown away by the fact that I'm leaving for a month long trip to Pakistan?   

So, I've found a way around it. I needed a way to subtly annoucing my desi links without looking like an idiot. Enter the mehndi. Every time I'm going to a new group setting, or to a desi party where I won't know anyone, I slather the henna on my hands.   

It's such a great conversation starter. If there are any desis around, they're often drawn to me and ask about it. That way I can broach the topic of my Pakistani husband without feeling like a fool. Often we can then move onto talking about my travels to Pakistan, how I like my mother-in-law, and eventually onto the non-desi aspects of my life. (there are some, I swear!) Even if there aren't desis around, people usually ask me questions anyway - usually whether it's a tattoo. Yeah, I've had my HANDS permanently tattooed in BROWN. Even in a desi party setting, the ladies will ask who did them mehndi and be impressed when I say I did it, or they're talk about which kinds of mehndi they like (which can then leads to talks about beauty tips, or even once about the construction of beauty in different societies!) Once I even did it for a interview because the interviewer had a very Pakistani last name. She turned out to be an Indian muslim, but we spent more than an hour talking about non-interview related stuff after the interview. Score!  

If you're socailly awkward like me, I highly recommend it as a way to encourage social interactions. People will flock to you!