i love picnics

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, an 18 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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onto today’s topic: i love picnics 🧺 

today i hosted my first event in the bay! no, it wasn’t a discussion on ai or fledged hackathon.

it was a picnic. :)

i was pretty nervous, since most of the events i ever host are for close friends i already have. here, i was taking a shot in the dark & hoping others would be equally excited to just hang out, play some games & vibe.

i whipped up a partiful link, secured one friend (ananya) so i would have that mental peace that at least one person was coming, and started sending the link out to communities i’m in.

i didn’t know if i had picnic mats or a speaker, and i didn’t think to check until 30 minutes before. i also didn’t know if everyone was going to follow through with the “bring a snack” requirement. 🥑 

i was so scared of feeling embarrassed at the possibility of 0 people turning up, and 2 people cancelling the morning of only fuelled my fear even more. but, i sucked it up and reminded myself why i was doing this in the first place: to put myself out there and step out of my social comfort zone.

my friendships are generally formed through natural recurring interactions. i’ve never actually activated an opportunity to make new friends that i’ve had 0 prior interaction with.

finally, it was 1pm, and i was standing off to the side of memorial glade (our picnic spot) because i thought it was mortifying to set up a picnic all alone.

i anxiously texted ananya asking when she would be here: no response. 😭

i took a deep breath and inched my way onto the glade and put down my stuff. 7 painful minutes of waiting later, a group of 5 people showed up together.

instantly, i was relieved just like that. chatting, having a good time and vibing wasn’t a problem, and i wasn’t stressed about that by any means.

i’m completely comfortable in social settings — it’s my element. that activation energy to start something myself, on the other hand, is nerve-wracking, and i’m working on it. this is the biggest step i’ve taken towards overcoming this fear of social embarrassment. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 

it ended up being a blast with a whole LOT of snacks, fun games of sword fighting (???), frisbee, taboo, cartwheel races and vibey music (even if the speaker died after an hour). there were around 20 of us total i believe, with different people flitting in and out.

i’d say it was a huge success: i had a lot of fun, made new friends, everyone was able to take some time out of their busy lives to relax, and i became more comfortable with challenging myself to be more uncomfortable.

will you host your own picnic now?

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