For a long time, I thought of myself as a very outgoing introvert. I always did well at parties; if nothing else, I could pick out the other weirdo in the group and find some common ground, even if that common ground was grousing about the other people at the party. As much as I loved my alone time, I also loved socializing, and I was great at it.
I was also drinking. And single. There is nothing quite like a beer and a biological imperative to bring out the gift of gab.
Things have changed, though. I don’t drink anymore, I am not single, and I am probably a little too comfortable with myself – comfortable to the extent that I make myself so happily alone at a party that I freak out other people. It has happened countless times: I will be at a gathering, standing by myself, having a dandy time watching what is going on around me. Some good-natured person will see me standing alone, figure I must be lonely, and strike up a conversation, only to find themselves ill at ease when they realize that I am not standing alone because I am desperate, I am standing alone because I like it that way, and there occasionally may be times when I make that just a little too obvious.
Absent the beer and the biology, I have realized that I am actually a little weirder than even I thought. I am bad at smalltalk that doesn’t involve flirting, and I don’t watch TV or go to movies, so unless you immediately have something very interesting to talk about, we probably won’t have anything to say to each other.
I know this makes other people uncomfortable, but I am fine with it, and I like to think that the people who are comfortable with silence are the ones most worth talking to. Over the years I have come to regard not filling silences with chatter as a discipline. I often think fondly of the line from The Talking Heads: When I have nothing to say / My lips are sealed / Say something once / Why say it again? and I have to remind that the line is from Psycho Killer, and the song is about a PSYCHO KILLER, and maybe I could just give in and talk about weather for fifteen seconds.
I went to a dinner party last night to which the hostess and host each invited three people who did not know each other. It was an interesting group, and I was happy to be there. As the dinner itself wound down, one other guest started doing dishes, and I decided to help, as my wonderful hostess friend was frazzled, tired, and tipsy, and really needed to sit down and enjoy her guests. I had about half a minute of stuff to say to my dishwashing partner. After that, we washed dishes in silence for a long time, listening to the conversation going on around us. During dinner, I made a few zingers, and had an opportunity to riff on why pantyhose are more comfortable on men than on women, and after that I was ok with not talking anymore. At some point, some one told me I was nice and thoughtful for helping. “Nope, just anti-social,” I quipped, with a grin.
The point in all of this is that socializing without the great social lubricants -alcohol, and the desire for use of the other kinds of lubricants with people in my presence- is a thoroughly different experience, and I am still surprised at how much a beer or a glass of wine and a raging libido colored my social life for so many years.
Regardless, I had fun last night. It was nice to get out with intelligent, odd people, even if I was more of an observer than a participant. (And here is my fifteen seconds on the weather: It snowed most of the day yesterday and roads were bad. 83 was fine, but by the time I was onto the little winding streets in Hampden, I was driving on eight inches of packed snow. As I drove down a twisting, one-lane street behind Steiff Silver, I looked toward the stop sign at the bottom of the hill and thought, “Man, I hope so.”)
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