On awkward questions and being painfully shy

Today Hemingway took me to his friend's birthday party way out in the suburbs. Not gonna lie, at the beginning I found it... pretty terrifying.

I'm pretty socially awkward. I'm shy, I never really know what to say, and I don't take well to large crowds. I never really know where to begin, so I end up just not beginning. Hell, my friends have nicknamed me Sheldon, so I guess I should stop being surprised at my own inability. Throwing me into a party of 25 unknown people is a bit like throwing someone who can't swim too well off the deep end of a pool - you cling to whatever is there with you, which in this case meant that I was Hemingway's shadow for most of the day. Sure, it gets better eventually, and I did manage to talk to a few people who were all very nice, but it was nice to be home afterwards, munching on fried rice and watching The Hunger Games on my couch. If they would have that part in a movie, I'd appear in the credits as Shy Girlfriend, somewhere along the end near the costume designers and assistants for all the famous people.

...yeah, that's pretty much me.

It gets even more awkward when people look at you with that "aww" face and gush: "So how did you meet?" The diplomatic answer is "at a k-pop club", and normally that satisfies peoples' curiosity, but then you get the "and what happened then?" question that just throws me. What do I say? "Uhm... we went back to his place, noticed that we not only liked each others' party personas but also each others' company and decided to keep seeing each other"? Somehow that doesn't seem right. I just kinda stammer and try to find a way of diplomatically expressing something that doesn't scream dance floor hook-up, not because I'm embarrassed (which I'm not) but because it's a weird first impression.

Other weird questions came, like "What is it that you like about him?", which is awkward to try to put into words even without the person in question sitting next to you. What do you say? When did this become an interview? Can't we talk about something less terrifying, like books or movies or video games? But after a while (and after the Q&A session is over), things loosen up a little and I can actually open my mouth without feeling like a weirdo, and things go pretty well, so I guess I'm not a totally hopeless case after all. Just gotta keep trying to... well, not die.