None of us feels 100% comfortable in every social situation. Most of us have to work at it. When I was a teenager, I used to practise aloud what I might say at a party or to a boy on the phone. It made me feel more prepared and ultimately more comfortable. What wasn't comfortable were the elastics wound tightly around my braces or the jeans so obscenely snug I had to zip them up with a wire coat hanger—my spleen still quivers at the memory.