It affected whether I approached somebody, what I could say once we were talking, and even what I ordered. One afternoon in college gave me all of that in the same experience.
The invitation went well
I was at the University of Florida during Summer B. There were fewer students around, and that felt more comfortable to me. I saw a girl walking alone. I hadn't seen her before that day, and my confidence was pretty high.
So I approached her. I managed to ask fluently if she wanted to get ice cream with me at the Ben and Jerry's across from campus.
Then we had to have the conversation
I struggled with the basic details people talk about. My hometown. My major. The fraternity I was part of. I got the invitation out. Then I was stuttering through those ordinary things about myself.
I ate chocolate ice cream that day because I stuttered more on the word vanilla. Vanilla was what I really wanted.
How the date ended
The ice-cream date was short, and we had very little in common. What I focused on was my fluency and struggling to say the basics to a complete stranger.
If I was grading the date, I’d say A for effort and D for fluency. But aren’t we always harder on ourselves?
What was I still learning?
That was a step in my process. I was gaining confidence, but I didn't fully understand how to maintain my fluency, how my emotional state came into it, or how to speak spontaneously. Those were things I still had to figure out.
The invitation was one part of that afternoon. Saying my hometown and major, keeping the conversation going, and ordering the ice cream I wanted were parts of it too. That's why this story stayed with me.