A walk in the park

As an African man, overcoming my fears isn't something I always look forward to because the things I fear are things that most likely has the potential to kill me. So if I'm scared of height, the last thing you would see me do is going skydiving just because I'm trying to face my fears, and the same applies to swimming if I'm scared of water. One thing life as a black man has taught me is that when you're scared of something that has the potential to end your life, you stay far away from that thing and not try to face it.

This is probably why they say black people would survive every horror story because we always run away the moment we see something scary unlike white people who try to investigate and probably end up dead.

_{Photo by Vadim Bogulov}

Anyways with all that being said, today I won't be talking about a life and death kinda fear because if I have any, the last thing you would see me doing is trying to overcome it. What I will be talking about instead is something that I feel has to do more with being nervous but sometimes to me, it turns into a little bit of fear. It's something so simple and yet most of us feel nervous (and sometimes a little bit scared) when it's time, especially if you happen to be as shy as I used to be back in the day. And that thing is meeting the opposite sex for the first time.

In the past, I've written of how I've challenged myself to do certain things that brings me out of my comfort zone and makes me extremely nervous. One of those things was going for a walk with a lady I've only chatted with online and never met face to face. I remember the first time I had challenged myself to do it and had set up this walk-date with this lady that I would be meeting for the first time, this was some few years back.

She had agreed to go on a stroll with me inside my school and we both had agreed on a time. Everything was fine until time started getting close and I saw myself shaking either from fear or nervousness. I've known some people who would smoke weed or take alcohol whenever they feel this way just to calm their nerves and give themselves some extra confidence to face whatever task that was making them feel nervous, but I did neither of both back then and so I went fully aware of everything happening around me, under no influence of anything.

I had gotten to the agreed place where we would meet early because I wanted to be there before her. When she eventually called to tell me she was close by, I could feel my heart hitting heavily against my chest. It was almost as if I was about to have an heart attack. Now this was my first time doing this and I saw myself asking myself questions like "what am I going to discuss with her?" "what are the right questions to ask?" and all of that added to the fear and nervousness but somehow I had manage to stand there, smile and said hi when she arrived.

The walk ended being a successful one because at the end of the day, it turned out that contrary to what I had thought, I didn't have to carry the entire conversation, I just had to make it fun, make her laugh and not really give direct answers all the time. It ended up being my best date, although that was the only date that I've been on at the time but ever since, I've been on multiple walk-dates and unlike how nervous and scared I felt the first time, they all have been a walk in the park for me now.

I overcame that fear by actually facing it head-on.