Theater lab-Breakthrough

This last friday, everyone was finally open with everyone else, which for me officially starts the beginning of the semester because I have never worked with people closely- on a scene or just in general without having a close-ish relationship outside of class. I was a little apprehensive about the exercise. First we were supposed to close our eyes, reach out, and find a partner. The first I did after closing my eyes was giggle because without sight, I was going to be touching somewhere on a person that I couldn't control, a person's whose name I had forgotten after the first class. Touching a virtual stranger was somewhat awkward because we were breaking the boundaries of social decorum that has ruled me for the past weeks in learning how to closely live with people I recently met. I reached out and felt someone's hand. We both grasped eachother's fingers as I felt someone tentatively hold my shoulder. Unfortunately Professor T-A then said we could only have one partner and that we would have to hold each other's ears. Since I was already holding one person's hand and was clearly their partner, I brushed the other person's hand off and tried to direct them towards the noicse of other peole movign around and trying to find partners. I then awkwardly felt up to my partner's shoulder, and probed for her head (I found out the gender of my partner by feeling the braids in her hair), and closed my fingers around my new partner's ear. Although the situation felt hilarious, both my partner and I felt safe to "violate" eachother, breakign the boundaries by toughing each other's ears because it was the only way that we could be marked as partners and as part of the group that had found a matching pair. When we opened our eyes, we found that two people had not found each other and we sitting along. When they explained their reasons for not finding a partner- not toughing someone quickly enough and not wanting to touch people at all- I wondered why they were not willing to be awkward in order to complete the exercise. When we discussed it as a metaphor for acting and in life, one point jumped out for me as a difference between the exercise and life- In the exercise we were all doing it together AND our eyes were closed, so no one was judging us- unlike on stage when the audience is constantly looking at you or in life when you're held up to evaluation. I realized that those two points that were not relavent in the exercise are inhibiting factors in my life, I get really nervous when people judge me. According to the "moral" of the exercise- to be able to be part of a group, to accomplish certain goals in life, I will have to reach out to people- however awkward I may be and however much other people will be able to judge me- I have to take the uncomfortableness in order to reap the rewards of completing an exercise, being in a play, getting a job, pretty much anything out of my comfort zone.