New Friends New Faces

I decided there is nothing more uncomfortable than sitting around a table with a group full of people and only knowing one of them. You love the person you are with but the other people you just dont know. As they talk about recent times you can only talk of past times. Any story you may have to say they find uninteresting and even more unfunny. And with every story they find just one more problem with you. The feeling of having ten people judging you at one time is enough to give you nightmares. Why do people subject themselves to such uncomfortableness? What is it in our nature that seems to thrive on the awkwardness of new faces? I wish I had the answer to those questions but they seem to elude me.