Sometimes there are moments that make me seriously question my social skills. Despite the fact that I have been known to be selectively antisocial on certain occasions, thus giving an impression of being stuck-up and stand-offish, up to this day I consider myself rather outgoing and friendly, friendly in a way that even boyfriend notices with certain dismay that I’ll start a conversation with anyone who’d stop to talk to me (today’s encounter on my way to grocery store serving as an example). If I were to describe my personal skills, shy would be the last attribute I’d apply to myself, keeping in mind that the last time I said, half-mockingly, to a shocked by some previous statement Peace Corps volunteer that “I’m just shy”, I received a roaring laughter in response.
Yet in the last year or so my social skills with a particular group of people have been greatly challenged and have left me wondering whether I’m really, seriously, socially handicapped. I’m not sure what it is about this particular “click” (and these people have known each other since high school, some even longer than that), that makes me feel not only extremely bored, but uncomfortable, inadequate and tongue tied. I have to admit though that I have to sit tight and watch myself closely so that i do not accidentally blurt out some of my typical “you’re such a dear, bitch” comments that have previously given me a reputation of “stay away from her, she stings.”
I realize that I may not be the easiest person to decipher. And perhaps it takes a lot to get “in” with a group as exclusive as this one, where my “foreignness” has been long established to explain why I don’t like football or share an enthusiasm for certain movies, “don’t hate me for being a communist, since I’m not, hate me for being a flaming liberal” has been agreed upon, and I have patiently explained to one of the crew that foreign does not necessarily translate to vegetarian and answered “thanks, I’ll take the burger, like everyone else” to “we thought you did not eat red meat.” As a side note - I wonder if there’s something about people who choose not to eat meat that gives them away, and whether I look like one (I take my steak bloody, thank you very much).
I have, on several occasions, tried to be more “open,” and “social”, and “nice” and yet, time and again when hanging out with this particular group I have to ask myself what it is about them or myself that makes me feel so uncomfortable, whereas I’ve been a whole lot more comfortable with a lot more exclusive, more stuck up and out of my league people.
“You’re comfortable when you’re in your element…”
Considering my past encounters, my element seems to include a potpourri of drunken Kentucky miners, snobbish government officials, gay bartenders, random cab drivers, Russian sailors, US marines, college professors, my mother’s friends, my brother’s younger friends, retired grandmas, nearly bankrupt farmers, lawyers, real estate moguls, corporate pricks and republicans my grandfather’s age who usually end up finding my “liberal” ideas at such tender age nothing but endearing. I am, after all, irresistibly charming and plain adorable, even when I’m the dear bitch. So what gives?
The thing is, when I look at each member of this group separately, I actually like them for the most part, and would probably have quite entertaining conversations with them had I met them say in a bar, or a coffee shop, out in the street or a grocery store, where the “nice talk” was not required and I could find some common grounds beyond the usual “cocktail” questions. And yet, considering that the likelihood of running into them separately in aforementioned settings would be very very slim, I am limited to a few “nice” phrases of exchange when having to spend time with them, thus giving up the hope that I’ll ever be anything but a tag-along girlfriend who’s shy and does not speak.
So once I realized that I am more or less denied of “group love” from people that separately are more or less ok, and even quite likable, I simply stopped trying and/or looking at those situations as uncomfortable. I’ll be selectively antisocial if that means that I can go an entire evening without having to utter as much as a peep. And this weekend I had a great, “quiet” time amids the group noise, truly enjoyed the stay at the lake with the boat ride in the setting sun while watching fireworks, and when alpha male arrogance and bloated ego became too much to bear, I simply retrieved to play with the dogs, discovering, to my surprise, that dogs, of all sizes and shapes, actually like me and that I have, indeed, been a closeted dog person all this time without even knowing it.
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