Cars X Girl

I apologize if the title is a bit misleading… It’s certainly not meant to be that way. And I do wish I had some awesomely useful and witty knowledge to share, but I’m afraid this is another time I’m going to try to seek out help from everyone else for this little dilemma I’ve been having.

The background.

This problem definitely isn’t new to me, I’ve had it for a loooooooooong time. It’s been with me for as long as I’ve been conscious of how I interact with people, so probably starting in my teens.

You see, I’ve never been the “social butterfly” that I was always supposed to be. (I’m a gemini.) In fact, I can be quite painfully shy. I’ve always managed to hide behind my talents, though, remain relatively ignored by my peers and recognized for being a smarty-pants by teachers. (Well, I’d like to think I’m fairly smart anyhow.) Even when I was younger, I wouldn’t talk to people all that much. It just wasn’t how I acted.

A few years ago, I realized something horrible… That being painfully shy was only going to hold me back from living the life I want to. In fact, I would really like to be an awesome person. (One of my favorite posts ever. Another great one from Chris Guillebeau & AONC.) Well, to be quite honest, I’d love to have the sort of life that the people I tend to read about have — most of them are travelers.

Though it’s not exactly the traveling that I’m after… I can be adventurous, but that’s not always my cup of tea. Instead, I’d like to have the freedom to live my life on my terms, and to chase cars unaffected by other, less important commitments in my life. Anyhow, I digress. This isn’t about the sort of life I want, it’s about how to get it. And to get it, I cannot be shy about who I am, what I expect of life and what I want to do and all that other good stuff.

It all involves… Social interaction! Dun dun dun….

Yup, scary, huh? I had to prod myself into agreeing to even try to not be so shy. I’ve always had very, very few friends, but I’ve always valued a few close friends to swarms of mediocre ones. That doesn’t always make it easy to not have a whole lot of friends, though, and I can be a tad overbearing sometimes… (Okay, maybe often. Shush. I know I’m not perfect.)

It was really my job that pushed me past a lot of it. Funny enough, I can go into work and strike up any sort of conversation with a stranger. I have an awfully hard time doing it outside of work, though. Especially with someone who isn’t working somewhere else. Without the common goal of me trying to offer help to someone when I’m working or me being the customer in the situation, I’m at a loss for how to get to know someone.

What really doesn’t help is when I think of the kinds of people I want to know. You see, while one can’t always choose the people who become your friends, you can always seek out a specific type of person. I tend to believe that by surrounding myself with a certain type of person, it will positively influence my life by whatever it is about them that I admire. This tends to be why I read a lot about the traveler type of person I mentioned before. I look up to and admire these people, and want to emulate them. I want to have a life story as compelling as theirs, so I carefully watch what they do, what they say and try to copy it.

But I get horribly tongue-tied and, once again, painfully shy. I mean, come on… These people are pretty damn cool and doing things most would or could only dream of. Why in the world would they want to talk to me? I’m about as uncool as you can get, seriously.

Starting on a good note — compliments.

There are two easy ways to get into a conversation with someone you don’t know well or at all — offer them a compliment and ask them a socially acceptable personal question.

By offering up a compliment, you’re building positive interaction. You’re showing interest in the person, and then by asking them a somewhat personal question, you’re furthering that interest and saying, “While I may really like your scarf, I wasn’t just talking to you because it’s lovely.” Get what I’m saying here?

So it’s all fine and dandy and such, until you run into my snag — How in the hell do I make some seemingly off-the-wall compliment sound sincere, to a complete stranger?!

I have a nice, large flower/vine tattoo on my right forearm. Believe me, if I’m wearing a t-shirt or a tank top, you can definitely see it. I have received many, many compliments in the three years that it’s been a part of me. Not once has any one of those compliments struck me as insincere… I mean, why bother saying something about it if you’re gonna lie to me, right?

Well, there’s that whole interesting-person-I-want-to-know thing going on. I’m afraid that my shyness, coupled with my stupid need to feel accepted (and not like a pariah anymore) and futile attempts to be an equally-interesting person are causing my compliments to sound insincere. Because of my insecurities, I stumble over my words, or seem very pained for conversation… And I’m worried that people are thinking that I want them to be my friend only because they’re some whatever (ex. writer or world traveler, or both) and I think it would help further me along because I’m interested in doing that too. (Writing and travel.)

I swear that isn’t it at all!!!

Honest, I am sincerely interested in picking these people’s brains to see how they got to where they are. What makes them succeed when others fail, often failing before they even begin? I want to know what makes them tick, how they think, how they just live life in general, their attitudes, quirks and nuances. Make them my case-study of sorts, you know. Be somewhat stalker like, but a sincere-fan-stalker-type.

Help with sincerity tips, please?

What I’m looking for are ways for me to pretty much get over myself and sound sincere when I compliment someone. I’ve thought about making it a goal to compliment at least one person a day, but I’m not sure how that’ll work for me. (In fact, it may be good for me to push through a lot of my awkwardness. Thoughts?)

Mostly, I want to know what are the best ways to compliment someone’s car sincerely. While I would like to be in contact with some of the awesome people I look up to, I would love even more to make connections to people who share my passion of cars.

I just never know if there’s a right way to compliment someone’s car, because I know there are wrong ways! I hate not knowing if I can go up to someone and strike up a conversation because I like their car and want to know about it, them and how they came to own what they do and do what they do. But I want to do so in a way that is undeniably sincere and curious, because, well, that’s how it is.

So please, someone teach me how to give sincere compliments and make awesome friends who help me to be awesome. Please?

I want to have a site people think is cool and have stickers too, like Dave at Stance Is Everything. Or make a decent income blogging and spend the rest of my time living a pretty awesome life like Adam Baker. (Both bloggers I look up to, who I want to give credit to for being completely awesome people who have wasted their taken time to chit chat with me. I wanted to show ‘em some love, but couldn’t fit them in as easily as my love for AONC. )

Meg

In 2007, Meg began learning about cars. Two years later, she had a very modified '97 Miata and a '90 240SX project car, as well as the Rookie of the Year autocross title. Life now completely revolves around cars and she wouldn't have it any other way. CarsxGirl is her way to encourage others to get into racing (it's not horribly expensive!), to document & share her car builds, an outlet to share & improve her automotive photography skills and to show that real car girls do exist!

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