About half a week late, but this is something I was thinking about. I have always hated rollercoasters. Mostly I was just scared of them; the hate comes from people trying to convince me there's something wrong with that. "There's nothing to be scared of" is not accurate. Maybe most people are afraid of thrill rides based on how it looks or some abstract notion of danger. What I am afraid of is feeling that dropping feeling in my stomache. I would call it painful, although different than normal pain. Even turbulance on airplanes gets to me. I know I don't like that feeling, and I know it will happen, based on rollercoasters I have ridden, making my fear of it totally justifiable. Who can say why I feel the way I do. I could blame my parents for being timid and instilling that to me when I was little, but I don't know if that is the truth.

The thing is, if I didn't want to go on at least a little bit, I wouldn't feel so bad declining. I suppose I might feel like a wimp anyways, but I don't feel this way about free falls or log flumes which I know that I don't like. Those rides are solely based on drops. Many rollercoasters have flips, corkscrews, curves, and speed, which are all thrills I do enjoy, because they don't involve that dropping feeling. Even the downward side of very tall loops don't feel that way, for some reason. With a lot of these coasters, if I can just make it past the first drop I'll have fun. This last trip, I was convinced to go on both Dueling Dragons (Ice & Fire) and the Hulk coaster. For all 3 of these, that was basically the case. The worst part, though, was the anticipation. When they lock you into a seat and suddenly there is no backing out of an experience of which at least some part I'm certain to hate. I disagree with people who say that if that's the worst part then you should do it because the ride really isn't that bad. If it is going on the ride that makes me feel that way (even if it's not moving when I do) then that's a valid reason to not want to ride. However, even with ones I've been convinced to go on and learned that it isn't so bad, I still feel that way a little subsequent times. If I could get over that, then the ride really wouldn't be so bad. I wish I could.

On another note, right before the first time I was convinced to go on the Hulk, I met a girl. I was waiting for my mom and brothers on it, and I noticed a girl who also seemed to be waiting for someone. I like making conversation with strangers in general (especially girls) but I'm usually shy and not sure if they would be interested. In this case I managed, eventually, to talk to her and ask if she was waiting too. We talked about rollercoasters and apparently we were in similar positions. Cute girl, something in common, not a bad situation. Unfortunately the conversation got cut short by my family getting off the ride and dragging me on. I would have liked to talk some more or at least find out her name or something. I went to look for her afterwards, to tell her it wasn't that bad, but she was gone. I had mixed feeling, happy that I had overcome my fear, and sad that I had lost that conversation and the common thread we had shared. The ideal would have been to find her afterwards, and convince her it wasn't so bad and then get her to ride it with me. Oh well, me and my silly vacation fantasies.