Not an essay, but hey, pretty good. I know exactly how you feel, whenever I used to face something new I'd over think it and end up curled in a corner crying with self-pity rather than just getting on with it. My advice would be a) accept yourself, as Morrissey says. You might never be the life-and-soul but so what the **? b) Get yourself as far away from where you are as possible. c) Get completely off-your-face bladdered d) Find a girl whose as anti-social as you. Play video games and make poached eggs together, or whatever. Drink sambuka. It worked for me.

Eh, that's pretty pathetic. You should hate yourself for being such a loser. I can judge you because I used to do the same thing. I got over it eventually and decided that if I ever wandered through a warp in space-time and met my former self I would punch him in the neck repeatedly.

Anyway, my tip would be to get a little drunk, I find that it helps. A lot. It helps even more if you're not the only one drinking.

Oh, and eventually that won't matter: it doesn't matter if you're a ** dancer, because these days dancing (especially at parties) is just an excuse to grind. You don't need any skill to thrust your crotch into a girl repeatedly (though it helps to have enough of a sense of timing to thrust your crotch into a girl rhythmically). If girls want to get you to dance, that means you're probably not too fat and disgusting, so girls will LET you thrust your crotch at them repeatedly. Just make sure you only do this at appropriate moments, because otherwise you might find yourself in a bit of trouble.

Also, it's fine to think you can't dance. In fact, it's fine if you really, really can't dance. Just don't tell the girls that, because they'll believe you. If you pretend you can dance they'll probably classify you as just another bad dancer, which isn't as bad as "damn, that guy's a **."

Normally I'd be a lot nastier, but it would have helped for someone to tell me this ** a few years ago, so whatever. Just get drunk at a party and dance drunkenly with a drunk girl. Preferably reggaeton. Once you realize that party dancing is basically dry humping, you'll have fun. At least it worked for me.

--Max Krugman

Wow, seriously, if I was a guy, I could have written that essay! I have the same exact problem, and the whole essay was even written how I write!

I can completely relate to the dancing thing. The worst part for me, though, (and maybe you have this same problem) is that the second I DO start dancing, my friends make such a huge deal about it that I wish I hadn't done it in the first place.

Anyway, great essay. I loved it!

DeepSixing

I really liked your story alot. You really developed the character's nature so that your reader can relate to him. I noticed nearly all of your sentences were very short and choppy. The few long sentences show a bit of stream of consciousness. I don't know if this was the intended effect, but it works in my opinion. In one paragraph, you break from that pattern. Maybe you should include a few slightly longer sentences in between the very short, choppy ones for variety. It still has the same effect. Another idea is to italicize all the stream of consciousness so they will be easily identifiable or not at all, and make it the reader's job to identify stream of consciousness. In the fourth sentence, you shouldn't say "four years and change ago". I doesn't flow well. Just say "four years ago" or "about four years ago". I'm not sure if I understand why Tim is an "emotional time-bomb". I doesn't come out in the story at all. You emphasize the self-consciousness well, but being self-conscious doesn't automatically lead to being an emotional time-bomb. Your character seems like a normal teenage boy. This story is by far, one of the best I've read since I joined fictionpress. Great job!

very well written :] i can relate, i have just about the same problem with dancing, in fact i've used the same excuses before too (except the white boy one, i'm a girl...xD). keep it up:)