My Social Butterfly

This Washington Post article brings up a lot of excellent points. As I read it, I recall a tale my mother once told me about how I was quite the social baby. I learned that once, as a tyke, I wanted a particularly ugly man at a bowling alley to hold me. I sat on the man’s lap, and laughed and smiled at him, as if nothing pleased me more than to babble at him incessantly.

That was long before the harm of bullying was inflicted, leading to my social anxiety. And I admit I now try to avoid most strange men I meet in bowling alleys and elsewhere.

My daughter, Violet, also had to cultivate stranger danger. She has always been a social soul. As a baby she once reached out for a female cashier at Albertson’s to hold her. She was insistent, and she eventually got her way.

Fast forward about a year and a half. There was an older gentleman in the dollar store who was raising my red flags for some reason. He was indescribably creepy.  He kept trying to engage Violet in conversation as she sat in the cart. She refused to reply, so he attempted to play a game of “peek-a-boo” with his sunglasses.

The man finally walked away. When he was barely out of earshot, Violet exhaled and commented, “Phew, that was close!” It was a phrase she had often heard watching her superhero cartoons. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

I am a somewhat the classic introvert. Violet is extroverted like her father, and often tries to make conversation with unfamiliar children, but she remains cautious around adults in social situations.

I still need to explain the “puppy” experiment to her, however. And I think she would fall for the candy trick in a heartbeat.

Yikes.