The Weekend

Pretty uneventful weekend, OCD-wise.

I went to a home repair class with some small exposures, and made myself buy some produce from the slightly funky farmer's market that has cropped up less than a block from my house.

I had a good experience on the social anxiety front. I've had as homework for weeks making small talk when I'm out in public, but I almost never do it.

At my home improvement class, I decided to try. The first person I chatted with clearly wasn't interested in any social interaction, and I felt a little silly, but I tried again during the break. I asked the woman sitting next to me a totally generic question about her experience working on her home. We had a really nice chat about a bathroom remodel she's planning. It was a great lesson in several ways. One, I hardly had to do anything to get a good conversation going. Two, the break was much more pleasant without my usual "trying to look busy while time s-l-o-w-l-y passes" approach. And three, this woman looked completely uninteresting to me until she started talking, and then she was really warm and friendly. It was a very "don't judge a book by its cover" conversation.

So that was good; I'll definitely be looking to do more of this, accepting that sometimes I'll say something dumb, and that's okay, too.