I become socially inept when I skate and people watch me.
If someone starts watching I'll initially hate it/them, and start muttering to myself that I hate being watched. I regress to an infantile state. I've tried to stop acting like this but it's impossible.
But if I land something and someone cheers, I smile at them and thank them. It's really immature and entitled of me to get upset in the first place at someone who's just interested in what I'm doing. I've never actually gone up to someone and told them to stop watching, that's over the line.
I'm also developing that growing older. I used not to give a shit or at least, not realize that I was actually giving a shit. I think as we grow older, we start understanding why some sessions feel off and some don't better, and picking up on little details that make or break the vibe such as people watching.
Sometimes I get distracted by vehicles zooming by or motor noises. Jumping on my board I'll try to be subtle not to scare off pedestrians with a sudden loud noise but as soon as I'm on my board and it's a constant rumble then I stop caring. I'll go skate certain spots when I know they are empty, but that's because I like my peace of mind whilst skating, if the people there are compatible I'll roll. I avoid the park nowadays because it's always too crowded with kids with shitty music in their ears and scooters and parents and I seem to almost lose my shit most every time I go now, which isn't why I skate. Occasionally I'll take smaller side streets that are emptier than the main streets, but that's also because I like exploring and waves of people staring at shop windows fucking get me.
I'm happy to interact with positive pedestrians because it's a chance to convey a good image of skateboarders, unless it gets to the point where the person becomes annoying but that's rare and they usually understand you're busy.
There's this one dude in my town that has been skating for the same 21 years as I have, who always was the typical overweight nerd type (see the stereotype of some of the background props in shitty skate movies like Grind) and never really learned anything besides the basic shove-its, despite skating a lot. I remember just the ollie took him six years to figure out. This dude is a full-on man-child who never understood that real life is different from video games and that actual, physical skateboarding demands all kinds of focus; he'll fucking shove his phone in your face to show you the scans of his latest drawings of Spiderman in between turns when you're trying something. Or do his little stationary shove-its in your run-up, then try to crack a dumb joke you don't even want to fucking hear as you're trying to go. At this point I think being aware of your surroundings really is a strength if anything.
Topic: real confessions (Read 1748845 times)