Social Panic

Somehow I’m still convinced that in a first impression situation, if I make enough inappropriate jokes the other person will like me. It is a real shame that I never seem to be able to read my audience then and have a flourish for leaving people’s mouths wide open as I begin the mad search for where I left my coat, knowing that this was once again not the audience for jokes about rubber sheets.

I’m only now finally convinced that alcohol isn’t for people like me. In the event of a nervous situation I can be found gulping champagne instead of oxygen. Introduce me to your parents for the first time and you’ll find that I’ve suddenly reverted to drinking wine through a Twizzler, much the way I consumed Boone's back in High School. It’s all very nuanced and classy, or I imagine it is until I spill down the front of my top. 

I’d gone to a friend’s party recently, and while I did have a good time it was also kind of a daunting set up. I’d found myself in the middle of conversations and nodding at impossibly blonde strangers and wondering what social etiquette was for noticing that someone’s hair extension was hanging by a thread. Was I meant to point it out to them? Or was it too early in our relationship and, like the shirt that’s buttoned wrong on a near stranger, was I just meant to pretend I hadn’t noticed? By the end of the night there was so much hair on the floor that I felt like I was standing in a nest.

I have a hard time having fun at these types of things, mainly because I’m chewing my tongue by the end of the evening wondering how badly I’ve trounced all over the social etiquette. I am the bridesmaid pulling her slip off in the middle of the vows and tossing it behind the floral arch, realizing only later that that maybe wasn’t the way to go about cooling myself off.  

It goes without saying now that I have more than a few acquaintances who avoid me at parties, such as the friend’s husband who lives in a country where it’s customary to greet each other with a kiss on the cheek. I’ve now gotten him in the ear four times, but really who’s counting? I’d catch his eye at a social gathering and then suddenly he’d be walking, well running really, in other direction. If anything I’m grateful to him for this, because it means I don’t have to spend that odd moment hovering near him and wondering if I shouldn’t try again.

I’ve noticed lately too that when I’m embarrassing myself I have a habit of making odd little noises at the same time. It’s like a way of letting go of the stress for me at this point and can’t really be helped. Invite me to a social event and I’ll be the one gasping for air in the corner, the other guests giving me a wide ring of personal space despite the small venue. Some sort of exotic animal that can only really do well on the moon.

Under the Bridge. Bratislava, Slovakia 2015