I have never had the joy of having a social calender before in my life, not that I actually have one right now at this very moment. I do have a calender that has nothing written on it, but I do not write my social engagements on it due to the fact I usually discover I have social engagements about five seconds before I need to report to them. This is how the world operates, on the spur of the moment.
That is not what this is about, this is about social things in general. I have never been a super social being. I hate parties, I hate large gatherings in general. There is a pressure there to dress up, look pretty and make small talk. I can't do small talk, as this head I use does not process information quick enough to be good at small talk. I like small social gatherings when you are trying to get to know the people around you. Small talk is pointless in reality for me. I have no interest in it. I like small groups, they have a purpose for me.
This past few weekends I have been a little social butterfly, almost never home long enough to touch down and take time to breathe. I flit between houses, lakes, boats and restaurants. Game nights, beer nights, wine nights, you name it I've been to one within a very short time span. The months before we moved to the dirt hole, my husband and I hardly EVER did anything remotely social. I would pester him sometimes, thus why he decided to introduce me to A&R and they became our social partners in crime for a few short months. I never thought in a million years I would be removed from an urban environment and suddenly have social situations everywhere. I cannot claim I have a "best friend" here. I have noticed there is always a pair of girls/women that seem to know one another better than the others in the group. Their husbands are best buds, knew one another from casual duty, a silly class they went to, field training, officer training, flying little planes for no reason other than to get rid of a few people. Their wives seem to latch on to one another and suddenly have a "close" sort of relationship with one another. These pairs seem to hang out together, sit around houses together and do things together other than go to social events. This fascinates me, as I wonder how this happens. For a while I hoped this would happen to me, but then I realized I operate too well on my own. A friend of mine seems to be the same way, only craving social interactions with other girls occasionally. I do more with her than any one else I've met here. I guess it also helps that she is the R of A&R thus I have gone through that awkward first meeting and me bumbling over words and phrases. Her pace of life is more akin to mine in a sense. I almost desperately for awhile wanted to like the other people I've met here, but the pressure I felt to be "one of them" was a little too much for me. I realized I am happy simply being who I am, as awkward as I am.
Oh, the night I decided I was going to be just my awkward, Stargate loving, Harry Potter obsessed, Star Trek nerd that I am something happened: I became at ease. I was sitting at the table, a lovely table that I had been horridly jealous of, and I stared at D (one of my husbands classmates) and just said, "I am horridly awkward. So I think I'll just be my old awkward self." He looked at me like I had lost my mind for a moment, not sure how this had happened, but he nodded and asked me what TV shows I watched. My husband gets a great joy out of telling people he married a sci-fi geek for some reason. I don't know how he could have missed this, as he only seemed to realize I liked the Sci-Fi channel a lot these last few months, but he seems to have great joy that I am a nerd in that sense.
Since I decided I was just going to be awkward and myself, the social gatherings have become less stressful to me. These people I meet in the dirt hole will go away at some point. I am not stuck with them for four years, nor am I 16 and worried about if they will like me if I have clothes from Abercrombie.
As I stated before, I have never been one to have a lot of social events in one weekend. All through high school I always had something to do, someone to talk to, people to juggle. In college I made it simple and kept to a core group of friends. There were weekends I would lay on the floor of my dorm and stare at the ceiling because I had nothing to do. I spent my summers doing just that wondering what I had done the past four years to prevent the staring at the wall syndrome. After college I had a lot of time to myself, as most of my friends were from far away places that were not near my urban center, however, my weekends were filled with my car and myself driving to see my husband. So, basically, for the past six years I became used to not being social with masses of people. It took awhile, but I got the hang of it it seems.
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