Calming Down

I can easily admit that I don't make friends too easily. I especially have never grasped the art of making friends of co-workers. I make a huge wall between my work-life and my personal life so I find it hard to talk anything but work-related stuff with co-workers, which in turn makes me a really boring person to talk to at work. (Not saying that I'm not a boring person off-work as well, I've never been good at small talk anywhere.) I also don't like to go to places where I've never been before and if I go there, I want a clear back-up plan and an escape route. So I was a bit nervous when my teammates wanted to arrange a summer event after work, at one of my co-worker's cottage. But I got over that and decided that I wanted to make an effort to get to know them better and let them know me a bit better. Except...


I had heard that the cottage was by the sea, which was ok. But this Friday was the first that I heard that it was actually on an island. It was a few minutes boat-trip to get there. And I have a fear of water. I'm OK on a big cruiser where you don't even have to see the ocean or ever acknowledge that it sails. (Really, most cruises should just portray a video feed of running water outside the windows and never leave dock, people spend their time indoors anyway...) But I can never go into a small bloody boat!

This phobia came as a surprise to my co-workers, which is no surprise in itself, since  (as mentioned before) I don't really talk about my own things to them. It didn't really help either that they tried to brush it off as 'it's only a small trip and we'll be wearing life vests anyway'. In my case, life vests actually make it worse. Life vests are a clear reminder that the boat can sink and I might be left afloat with the vest alone.

See, in my case, it's not the concept of drowning (I'm a fairly good swimmer), or the H2O itself. It's the sharks.

Yes, sharks. I hate even typing the word. I get them image of me, in water, with my legs under the surface and a... I can't do this.

And no, it doesn't help to point out that there aren't sharks in the Baltic Sea. There are sharks everywhere! There actually are a few cases known where sharks have ventured to these waters. Sharks can swim in both salty and sweet waters, they can swim up rivers for Fyrd's sake! And the Baltic Sea is so murky, you can't see anything of what's down there. So there could be anything...

Now I've actually swam in waters where there are known cases of shark attacks, both at Miami Beach and Mauritius. But in those cases, the water was clear enough to see like a mile ahead, the base was sand so you actually knew where the bottom was and I never went more than knee-deep. But give me a swimming pool where I can't see the bottom, and I see sharks there. I sometimes have anxiety attacks of sharks coming through my bloody floor to bite my leg off. (Had a dream about this once, been erradically feared of my floor going liquid ever since.) I know that phobias aren't actually rational. Doesn't do anything about it though.

So now I have to tell my boss that I can't go to the event. And ask her that she'll keep my co-workers off my back on this one. I don't want peer-preassure even trying to get me to change my mind. I don't want to explain this in more detail to them. Since (like you, probably) they won't understand what it is like for me. They don't know that I'm almost at tears just thinking that I might be forced into a boat again.

So, yesterday, I had to do something to calm my nerves. So we made sangria with Valentine. It's a nice sparkling wine sangria with a dash of quantreau plus strawberries and apples. And for today, I have a few ciders cooling, and the champagne to serve. Never mind the cheesecake I've got in the fridge as well. If I can numb this with alcohol, then with sugar-high. Luckily the events of the next game of Bloody Pirates take place in a inland city. Besides, there can be no sharks in that world. I'm the GM.