So I got invited to the party I mentioned in the last entry, which I'm pleased about :) They're going a few hours after the party starts—hearing about that irritated the shit out of me cos if the RMS weren't so stringent/moronic with their ID requirements, I'd have my L's, hence having ID, and I'd be able to tag along. In reality, while it would be great to go, it's not a huge loss. I might be able to snag another invite soon after I (hopefully) get my L's next weekend, if not from the person who's party I'm going to then from someone else, perhaps my cousins who also like to go out. And it's not like I'm gonna go out one time and instantaneously hit it off with the ladies, or make a shitload of new friends—I'm only gonna make gains in those fields if I go out regularly. So this is only a temporary delay for the start of my going out, not the end of the world (could be the end, too, if I hate it :P). And I know damn well that as fun and new and exciting as it could be, it'll also be super fucking scary and nerve wracking and all that too, so I've incidentally postponed that saga as well :P It felt so strange, not being able to go out, after having not wanted to go out for all these years.
I'm looking forward to the party, but I've felt nervous about it for the past few hours. I really don't know why. I mean, I'm not going into town with them, so the only part of this experience which could even possibly be 'new' to me is the part I'm not attending. It's a fucking birthday party with people I already know—what could possibly go wrong? I'm not gonna get bad-mouthed, insulted, judged, ignored, or anything like that. I have my gift and my card, so I'm not unprepared in that respect. I've got clothes to wear, I've got plenty of time to get ready before I leave, and I live nearby so I don't have to worry too much about travelling. Yet despite all that knowledge, I feel like I do when I'm standing at a stage door, moments from performing before an audience.
This kind of social anxiety is the worst cos I don't even know why I feel like this. If I did have my L's and I was able to go out, I'd totally understand why I was feeling nervous: I'd be going somewhere new, somewhere I'd never been before. I'd be around heaps of strangers in a building I couldn't navigate, where all the people I know would be spread out doing their own thing cos they all have done this before. Having to deal with my brain throwing hypotheticals at me every thirty seconds, like "What if you can't get home? What if you don't have money for a cab? What if you get held up at knife/gun point? What if some huge guy starts a fight with you? What if you get rejected by some chick you talk to? What if you don't get rejected by some girl you talk to, and you somehow get her to go back to your place, and she sees the Nintendo 64 in your room with the Pokemon logo on it and laughs at you? What the fuck are you gonna do then? Huh!?" That's fucking scary. I'm sure I could bear it, but at least being nervous there would make sense. This doesn't make any sense! Hopefully it subsides before I go, but I have a feeling it'll only get worse. I'm sure it'll be fine once I'm at the party, just like I'm fine once I've told my opening joke when doing comedy. But until then... :/
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Back now. Had a great time. Nothing bad happened. I told you, past self, but you just wouldn't listen. Gotta trust future self, bro; he's wise.
So yeah, I had lots of fun :) My friend seemed to really like her gift: money for her trip, but in Great British Pounds rather than Australian Dollars. I know she's gonna have to get all her money converted anyway, but I thought it'd be cool to give her the money in pounds, just for the hell of it. I figured others would also give her money in GBP, as it seemed such an obvious thing to do, but they were the first pounds she'd actually held, so she got a nice surprise. Seeing as I'm usually shit with gifts, that went far better than expected.
I also talked to more people this time around. Last year, I mainly talked with one person the whole time. It's not like that was bad or anything, but it did mean I restricted myself a great deal in terms of who I interacted with. This time around, I spoke mainly to three people: all people I already knew, but still branching out more than last time. There wasn't really a focus on any one of the three, either; my attention was evenly divided. I had smaller interactions with some of the others, most of whom I knew but a few of which I didn't. I largely avoided talking to the people I didn't recognise, but didn't feel uncomfortable being around them or being spoken to by them. Baby steps :) I also managed to get two more visits with friends on the table, ready for scheduling later on, so that'll be awesome. I'd already managed to invite two friends over since uni ended, and this makes for one more friend being invited (and another visiting again) so I'm doing far better than I was this time last year. Glad I'm managing to keep the ball rolling :D
I even tried a new food! Not totally new, but still something I hadn't really tried before. The birthday cake was a home-made cheesecake, and I was like "the cake part is cool. I approve of the cake part. But the cheese part? I do question the cheese part." I eat heaps of things that either have cheese in them or are cheese flavoured, so I just said "fuck it" and took a plate. It was gggoooooooddd ^_^ I thought it'd have more of a creamy texture to it, but it was more solid, being cake and all, so I ate it right up. Didn't try anything else, but this is still something new, which makes me happy.
The only even remotely bad part was that I couldn't really dance, and that was cos the music just wasn't the kind I was into (our tastes in music are pretty much polar opposites). At one point, I was sitting on the couch, listening to the music, going "hmm. I would like to shake my groove thing all up in this mofo... but my ears are saying 'nooooooooo'". It's not that the music was unbearable or anything; I just have trouble dancing to music I don't know well enough, especially when no one else is really dancing either. Even if I'd hated the music with a burning passion, I could still have danced to it if I knew how it went, but I don't listen to Taylor Swift or Glee or One Direction... and even the prospect of dancing won't change that :P Was only a small thing, though: the friend and I joked about it for a while after I mentioned it, so it was all gud :)
And I will dance to pop music, by the way. Some of my favourite dancing music is pop music. If, at any point, I heard "It's just one thing that got me trippin', it's just one thing that got me trippin', you did this one thing my soul may be feeling, it's just one thing you did", my head would go side to side with the "Ooohh, ooohhh, oh!" I'd dance to that shit. Even if it was Britney Spears saying "gimme gimme moar, gimme moar, gimme gimme moar", I'd dance, cos I recognise it. I hope they don't exclusively play Swift and 1D and similar music at clubs, or it's gonna be make an already hard job even harder :P
Speaking of that, when people left my friend's place either to go into town or go home, I managed to let my friend know that I was happy to be invited out again if she went. Part of me was like "Yes! Initiative! Letting people know you're interested! Good work :)"; the rest of me, after I left, was like "Hey, wait a minute.. you didn't thank her for inviting you! She thanked you for coming, and you said 'no problem', then let her know you'd happily take another invite into town, then you left! Oh yeah, hit her up for an invite, but don't thank her for what she gave you. Selfish fuck." I mean, I did thank her when she gave me the invitation, but it's always polite to thank someone for inviting you to stuff when you leave. When I realised, I was like "ssshhhiiitttt. Sssshhhiiititt! I always do that! I never not do that!" I didn't really stress about it much, but given that expressing courtesy for invites is one of the few social things I have down-pat, it felt foreign not to have done it this time. On the plus side, though, that reminder means there might be a chance for me to go out before the year ends! Yay ^_^
So yeah, had many funz, couldn't really have gone much better from my perspective.
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