Challenge: Take a selfie with a random stranger!
Reflection: First day of challenges continues…
So this was the second the challenge I had completed, which is funny because the selfie challenge is typically the first one that people will do. But something about this challenge made me extremely nervous and instead I chose to do the plank challenge first (click here to see that post!).
I feel like my situation is quite unique and requires a little introduction. I am quite comfortable making conversation with random people. And I feel fairly comfortable doing something silly in public when I’m around my friends. But single me out and make me do something alone and I get kinda uncomfortable. Which is odd because I don’t mind snapchatting or vlogging for YouTube in public. Something I realized was that I have a hard time asking for people’s time, I don’t want to be a burden on people. So asking someone for something as simple as a selfie was actually difficult for me.
Before: Leading up to the challenge, I had done the same thing that I did with the plank challenge. I made up excuses. Things like “Oh that person looks busy listening to their music.” Thinking about how to stop someone and writing out the script in my head made my heart start racing. It was such an odd thing to me that I was getting nervous over this task.
During: I finally gave myself what we call a “time bomb”. Essentially the time bomb is exactly what it sounds like. The SocialDive team has coined this term for when we tell someone else they have “x” amount of time to do the challenge. In my scenario there was no one to tell me to do something in a specific time frame, so instead I told myself “YOU MUST STOP THE NEXT PERSON”. I approached the girl in the picture and asked her for a small favor. She responded as expected, “uhhh sure??? What is it?” At this point, I’m extremely nervous and I definitely stumbled over my words as I could see this girl was kinda freaked out. But I continued and asked if I could take a silly selfie with her. And instantly as soon as she heard this she smiled and said “Sure!” We took the selife, I thanked her, and we parted ways.
After: This was such a weird encounter for me. It went from super awkward and difficult to being very comfortable. The feeling switched once the girl’s face went from “creeped out” to “selfie? Yeah!!!” It was extremely comforting for me and made the experience easier once she smiled.