Things that are “AWK-ward,” according to a group of University of Maryland students hanging on the campus quad:
1. Elevators.
2. That guy in the dorm who is so tall that he sees over shower stalls without even trying.
3. Having dinner with your new girlfriend when your ex-girlfriend and her new girlfriend show up at the same restaurant (you, in this instance, are a he).
4. Vegetarian chopped liver. Eeeeww, the most “feces-like food EVER.”
5. Curry.
When any of these are encountered, the appropriate reaction is to say, loudly and in falsetto, AWK-ward!
Recently, the Maryland students came up with the situation most deserving of the declaration and decided on this: You are about to hook up with someone when you discover that he or she is the opposite sex than you thought.
AWK-ward!
It is the era of awkward, as if the world has suddenly become blessedly simplified. Every negative experience can now be encapsulated in two syllables.
The home of awkward is Facebook, which has more than 500 groups dedicated to people acknowledging various awkward situations. “An Orgy With the Golden Girls Would Be Awkward at First — but Fun Overall” has 1,166 members. “I Tried to Smother My Roommate With a Pillow and Failed So Now It’s Awkward” has 834.
Kelley Gorshow, a sophomore at San Diego State University, founded “College Is AWKWARD” because she heard the term “at least 10 times a day.”
“Like at the library,” she says. “The library is so awkward.” Seeing people study. Painfully embarrassing.
Acute discomfort is a hallmark of the high school and collegiate experience, and this is the population that has embraced the word and hugged it out. The state of awkwardness is not remarkable.
But the compulsion to label the state in public, rather than using the traditional method of internalizing mortification? It’s so self-aware, like the real-time equivalent of a Facebook status update.
“Joe is feeling awkward.”
In case anyone was wondering.
Talkward:
Awkward variations on “awkward.”
1. Gawkward: Being caught staring at a woman’s cleavage.
2. Stalkward: Getting busted loitering outside your ex’s building.
3. Jockward: The social agony particular to gym class.
4. Barackward: Learning that a friend supports Clinton, after you’ve put an Obama sticker on his shirt.
And The Herald’s own contribution:
Mockward: The embarrassment of making fun of something that falls flat.
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