Because I am trying to learn about myself and figure out how to deal with these situations, I’m writing this blog from an emotional foxhole. I’m despondent and frustrated and need to figure out how I go on from here and don’t let my emotions rule me. Abandon hope all ye who click the “more.”
My company’s holiday party is tonight. I didn’t know that until this afternoon, when my supervisor said, “We really think you should stop by. It’s going to be awesome.” But I need to go down to Old Town to have the holiday dinner with my husband’s dojo, I said. It’s at nine. “Well, that’s when our party ends,” he said.
Enter panic.
I have very little emotional stamina. I am terrified of parties and social situations not because I don’t enjoy them but because they last longer than I can take. After a while I’ve circulated among everyone I know to say hi to, and I daren’t bother anyone else for fear they’ll think I’m being annoying. And there’s nothing more to say, and we stand there in an awkward circle until someone excuses themselves for a minute, permanently. And there is no way in hell I can hack two parties in a row.
But this is my first year with this company, and how much networking and making-myself-known (bad at it as I am) could I miss out on? Years from now when my co-worker and I are vying for the same upper-level job, will she get it because I didn’t make the first step in a social situation to get close to someone who could be key to my ascendancy here?
How do I go to my husband’s dinner and not be resentful of the fact that when I went to the restroom, the people who were in there were changing into sparkly black dresses and gossiping and talking about makeup– all the things I’ve been so desperate to find a companion or two to do with me? I could have been part of that group of girls. Instead, I’m alone, crying at my desk in an empty office. I’m supposed to smile and enjoy the dinner like that didn’t happen?
In the end, I was thinking as I sat in the toilet stall trying not to sob, I defeat myself. I’m so paralyzed of social situations that I spend the whole time worrying about myself and whether I’m about to fall apart, and that’s what leads me to be so self-involved and not be able to relate to people. Which makes social situations painful, because people don’t know what to say to me when all I want to do is talk about myself. Which makes me paralyzed of social situations…
(and if you give a mouse a cookie…)
How good’s the irony that in a blog where all I do is talk about myself, I’m complaining that I’m not learning how to not talk about myself?
I don’t know. I’m miserable. And somehow I have to get over it.
My co-worker just asked another person here how her pottery class is going. How’d she find out that she was taking a pottery class? Because she asks questions and cares about people’s lives and doesn’t talk about herself unless she’s asked, that’s why. How do I learn to care more? And if I pay more attention and ask more questions because I’m lonely, does that make me just as selfish as before?
I hate that I’m in this place. I hate that I’m selfish enough to post it publicly hoping against hope that someone will have the answers. I hate the person who wrote this post. And I wouldn’t want to be friends with her, either.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: loneliness, making friends, navel-gazing, self-pity, selfishness, social phobia
Don’t despair! You are definitely not alone in how you feel.
Even though you think everyone else is having a ball, they’re not.
Since I don’t know if this is being posted publicly….. I’ll end and say Keep the faith, baby!
Fondly, Your first “boss”
Hi old boss, and yes it is posted publicly – I have no qualms about broadcasting my entire life as you might have noticed!
The poetic justice to this is, I didn’t go to my company’s party and I went to my husband’s party, but the power went out at the restaurant! we had to change restaurants, and we finally left at 11, when it became apparent that we were not going to get dinner until midnight.
We went to bed hungry. Booo!
I doubt you’re any more selfish than anyone else. We all want to be heard, it’s one of the most basic drives. It’s why blogs, and journals, and all that stuff is so huge – because the world is full of people screaming out to connect with others. And mostly failing. Because it’s hard work and we’ve been programmed to think that it’s easy and that there’s something wrong with us if the skill doesn’t come as easily as breathing. It doesn’t, it’s hard and scary, and sometimes really, really boring. Yeah boring, I said it. Boring for me and boring for them, because, damn, I’m no more interesting than they are. And I’m at least as selfish if not more. Anyway, that was no help at all. But I hope you know that you’re not alone <3
Thanks Kethni. :squeeze: I can’t wait to get back on the elljay. I have such exciting ideas for stuff we can do in the new year while we’re waiting for vol. iv. And memes, dear god, memes are killing me with not being able to sign up for them! To think that I could have known what superpower i’d have and who would play me in a movie, had I just been there to sign my name! :tortured sigh: Anyhoo, the point is… oh, wait, there is no point. You have always been deeper than me. :sigh:
Oh, yeah, there is a point: It’s good to know I’m not alone. Huggles. Thank you.
Well, back to work…
Well, I’m way to late to offer timely advice, but I must say that having met you in something of a social situation, I can promise that you do not come across as annoying, or any more self-involved than the average person. Everyone in the world primarily wants to talk about themselves. Really.
Interacting with people is hard, especially when the only thing you share with them is jobspace. I have a difficult time with it myself, because my interests and favored entertainments don’t often coincide with the population at large. It makes chitchat difficult.
Socializing is a skill – the more you do it, the better you get. But I think it’s more important not to beat yourself up about it. It’s OK that it’s not easy for you – it’s not easy for a lot of people.