Lost in the crowd

When you do something scary or stressful — bungee jumping, public speaking, etc. — do you prefer to be surrounded by friends or by strangers? Why?

If I had my pick, I would have to say that I would prefer to be on my own,  but that is not an option here, is it?

Whenever I am stressed I don’t talk.  I clam up like an oyster and no amount of prying is going to get me to open up.  On the contrary, prying and prodding and asking and nagging just leads to me becoming irritated and snappy.   And, I must admit, I can become rather snappy when I am trying to figure something out and someone tries to pick at my brain to find out what’s boiling underneath the surface.  My poor family can contest to that and they have learned the fine art of staying-the-hell-away when they see that I am busy working something out in my mind.  Probably not the best approach to have, hey?

I have just never liked the approach of having it out in the heat of the moment, where you speak or act from a passionate and / or emotional point of view.  We always end up saying or doing something that we will regret later and realize too late that those words can not be unsaid.

Instead, I choose to battle things out in mind, considering all options, possibilities, probabilities and alternatives.  I can quite easily brood over something for weeks on end until I have come to a conclusion.  Then, once I have made up my mind, I will state my case.  This too, unfortunately is not the best possible approach.  Quite often the person on the receiving end of my argument, which by now  have turned into a debate worthy of a Presidency Speech, has no idea what I am on about and has already forgotten about the thing that upset me to start with.   Add to that the fact that I have a very keen sense of observing or hearing the smallest little detail and you have a winning recipe – well, on my part at least.  My ex-husband and subsequent boyfriend maintains that I should have become an attorney at law and my arguing style has (un)fortunately left them with not a lot of room for winning an argument.  Not that I mind hahaha!

So for this one, at least if I am amongst strangers, I can count on the fact that I can “get lost in the crowd” and allow my mind to what it does best without any interference.

What do you prefer?