The Reinforcement of Avoidance

The ice breaker at my college orientation left me frozen in my seat. I was in an auditorium full of strangers, who I was expected to, well, break the ice with. The professors who initiated this excercise had just given out bingo sheets that they printed out to everyone. A specific activity was typed up in each square. We were all supposed to ask around to see who did what, have them jot down their name there, and get three names in a row in order to get bingo. I don't remember there being a prize for winning, but I remember the bout of internal panic that I felt as a result of this.

It was all too much to process. The people, the instructions - all of it overwhelmed me. As everyone began to mingle, I dissociated from myself, easily falling back into the role of an observer. All the while, I tried to give the illusion that I was involved to the professors, turning around to look at all of the people around me. I thought I was doing fairly well. No one bothered with me so far. I just had to keep up this facade until it was all over.

Then, some guy who sat in front of me intiated contact. I forget what he said exactly, but it had something to do with the bingo sheet. The fact that he even spoke to me at all took me off guard. I was forced to connect back to the situation, which came to me as a struggle. When I didn't say anything, he flat-out asked me, "Are you retarded?"

I was too shocked to answer.

"You are retarded," he concluded, then spoke to someone else, like nothing happened.

His words hurt, not because I was "retarded", but because they poked at an old, festering wound. In my mind, they translated as "socially inept", which stemmed back to my social anxiety, something I hated myself for even having. They left me blinking away hot, stinging tears, just wanting this excercise to end already.