On Saturday I took my family to the local Museum of Nature and Science, an awesome place with a great Children’s museum. My son also loves the Nature building because of the “flying turtle”: a 20-foot long turtle-saur skeleton hanging from the ceiling.

This particular day my wife and son were doing an activity and I was playing on the floor with our daughter, and some people recognized me from college. This has been happening more recently over the last few months, and I can only imagine it’s a test from God. I failed this one.

Two things: I dread running into old acquaintances and meeting new people. Outside of certain contexts (basketball court, classroom, small church activities) it is painful to talk to people I don’t know well. My wife tells me I get a “get the h**l away from me” look. I don’t mean it, I promise. I just get so tense that I can’t control my facial expressions.

On this occasion the two people I was were friends of a friend from almost ten years ago, and I honestly couldn’t place them at first. But after I did remember, I did not do a good job of reflecting their enthusiasm. They seemed excited to see me, which makes sense; I was glad to see them, because it’s always great to see someone from college and someone from days that I can reminisce about.

But I tanked. I continued to look confused, my level of tension rose, and I couldn’t recover. When they walked away my wife called me over for a little “pep talk”: “You have to try again.”

So I did, I introduced my family, and tried to converse, but was wrangled by a needy three-year-old, and the opportunity slipped away again. I’ve been feeling horrible since, because I really did want to talk! I wanted to ask how they were doing, what they were up to, how long they’d been in town, and so on. But I never got the chance. I kept hoping we’d run into them again, but we ended up in the kid’s area, so it didn’t happen.

Maybe I’ll see them again, maybe not. But I resolve to not choke next time.