I don’t like doing things I’m not good at, like conjugating Spanish verbs, eating spaghetti, speaking in public or anything athletic. Supposedly everyone starts out being bad at something and improves with practice, but I don’t think that is true: I am possibly the most un-athletic person alive, and practice has never improved me.

My friends know this and love me anyway (or so they tell me). So when a friend, whom we’ll call M, asked me to sub for his rec softball team last summer, I didn’t feel bad telling him I couldn’t make it. But then he called again basically begging me to play so they wouldn’t forfeit the game.

All I would have to do, M said, would be show up, sit in the dugout and drink beer: I wouldn’t even have to play; the boys would. I just needed to be there. This sounded painless, so I agreed. M, however, had lied to me: It turns out co-ed rec sports leagues require a certain amount of girls to play. I learned this when one of M’s friends said, “We’re up, here’s a glove!” and shoved me out of the dugout.

Somehow, and I’m not sure how this happened, I wound up as the catcher. My hand-eye coordination is about what you would expect, given my lack of athleticism, so most of my time as catcher was spent watching the softball fly towards me, moving out of its way and then picking it up from wherever it landed. The first inning I threw the ball back to our pitcher underhanded, but apparently I wasn’t supposed to do this because M took me aside after that inning, whispering, “Now, Leigh, come here. We’re going to practice throwing the ball normally so you don’t have to throw it underhanded to the pitcher anymore.” I think he was alternating between being embarrassed to know me and being thoroughly amused by me (which are the two reactions I get most often).

As for the batting situation: The last time I had held a baseball bat and swung at something was probably middle school — a good six or seven years earlier. I hadn’t been a good hitter then, and my skills, unlike a fine wine, had not improved with age. I pretty much just swung randomly and got back to the dugout as quickly as I could.

Thankfully I somehow slowly gave up being stressed by the situation and fully embraced my awkwardness. The whole time I either grinned like an idiot or laughed out of nervousness, which amused the other team. They were winning by a lot, and I think they had taken a liking to me (like you take pity on a small, defenseless animal), so the last time I came up to bat, the pitcher threw the ball toward me softly, and I barely hit it.

This was so unusual that I just stood there and looked at the ball as it rolled. At some point M and his friends started yelling “Run!” so I made it to first base, near where the ball had landed and stopped. The baseman looked at me, looked at the ball and looked at me again, at which point I realized that this was like when you let a 5-year-old win at “Candyland” even though you could beat her and that I was the 5-year-old. I figured I’d go along with it, and so I kept running until I got a home run. This was very exciting, even if the other team thought I was possibly handicapped.

I don’t like putting myself in uncomfortable situations, situations in which my success is not guaranteed. They remind me that I’m not as cool or as in control as I pretend to be and that I am vulnerable. I don’t like being reminded of that, because it means I could be hurt. If other people think I have it all together, it is that much easier to lie to myself that I do. No one is going to think I have it all together if I mess up at things all the time, so why not stick to things I’m good at?

I think I avoid being vulnerable so I can avoid acknowledging, to both myself and my friends, my inadequacies and weaknesses. This is silly because I’m not fooling anyone, but it’s how I act a lot of the time: I avoid situations, whether athletic, academic or relational, in which I could be hurt. I’m getting better at opening myself up and trying new things, but it’s a slow process. Sometimes it sucks, and I do get hurt (I was quite sore after that softball game), but sometimes I end up having fun (or getting home runs). You win some, and you lose some, but I’m learning that maybe the risk of losing doesn’t mean I shouldn’t play.

— Leigh Dickey is a junior in global studies. She can be reached at [email protected].