How Not To

Chapter One

"Can you hand me another beer?" my best friend, Kaylee, shouts while standing at the edge of a crowded table. We were surrounded by excessively hormonal, sweaty, and of course - good looking guys who were yelling all sorts of witty comebacks and senseless jokes over a good old game of beer pong.

After many failed attempts over the timespan of a week, I had finally been the 9th caller on our local radio station, and won a pair of tickets to Boots and Hearts. It had always been my dream to visit the multi-day country music and camping festival that was rumoured to be a surreal experience, even better than Coachella. Seeing as how I had never won just about anything in my life, you can pretty much say I was undoubtedly, beyond ecstatic to finally see all of my most adored country music artists at one of Canada's most incredible outdoor music concerts. My best friend on the other hand....

Well, let's just say she would never pass up any opportunity where she has an excuse to do her two most favourite things...

Booze and boys. No shocker there

We had been here all weekend long and unfortunately, it was the final day of the festival. A lot of people chose to show up in some awesome-looking RVs, but majority of the crowd came here with just a car and a tent - and we were one of them. We managed to get here early on the first day, which left us with some solid choices of where we wanted to pitch our tent. We ended up located next to some rowdy crowds who were around our age, which could only mean two things - no sleep and endless partying.

The entire outdoor grass field was filled with thousands of tents and parked cars with the occasional ping pong table laid out, lawn chairs sprawled next to each tent and endless amounts of portable BBQs which people had packed for the weekend. Bringing a BBQ seemed like a smart idea, but we never went hungry. Each day and night, there were hundreds of food trucks lined up across the back fence, selling anything and everything from burgers and fries to tacos.

I dug my hand into the cold ice that lay in our cooler next to our tent, and pulled out one of the last remaining cans of Bud Wieser that we had packed for the weekend. I sucked in a deep breath, holding onto the can of beer in hopes of finding some ounce of confidence during my short stride back to the crowded table.

I've never been one to do great in social situations... if anything, the more I try to come off as normal, the more of a fool I actually end up making myself look.

Truthfully, I've been a very shy person for as long as I can remember, except the social anxieties have just recently continued to get worse, for reasons I'm not even completely sure of... except maybe the fact that I have a really hard time letting people get close enough for my walls to finally be let down. All my life, I've never been the type of person to have a big social group, I've never been the girl to have guys gawking at her feet... and that's been something that I've learned to accept and be okay with.

It's definitely next to impossible to just forget about my anxieties when my best friend is, well, the exact opposite of me. But seriously, I just wanted to spend my weekend listening and enjoying good music in the hot and simmering sun that Canada's August has to offer. Instead, I'm here... once again, trying to control my emotions in uncontrollable social situations. But, I need to try my very best to put all those unnecessary worries behind me... this was the first time I've seen my best friend since I was away for College the last two years.

And by best friend – I really meant soul sister

I had just completed my undergraduate degree in Education, and this was our big summer celebration together before I move in with her. She has a small, 2 bedroom house in a town away from my parent's place, and getting away is exactly what my life needed right now.