This regular blog things has always been a little bit of a dodge. It's not like I have a million friends clamoring for my attention every night of the week. A lifetime of social anxiety and family focus precludes a lot of those complications anyway. And if I did have a bunch people lining up to dominate my schedule, would Thursday really be the day of choice for that? So my point in this paragraph was going to be "when you have a regular obligation you're compelled to stick to, gosh, that gets you a whole night when you can tell your friends you are busy," but who are the people in my mid-GenX cohort trying to line up an evening of Fireball and mechanical bull-riding* on the day before Friday? Even back in our younger days, we were trained to save Thursday for must-see-TV, when we'd all stay in to watch Seinfeld and Friends where now we mostly use it to watch Seinfeld and Friends, just in any episode order we fancy.
The unsecret truth has always been that I'm always busy. Not with actual competing obligations or preferred doings, just with a brain burdened with a fight-or-flight response to invitations. I've gotten better about it in stages over the years, but part of that has just been accepting that it's part of how this stupid biochemical machine I'm stuck operating works. Somewhere on some planet perfect evolution has occurred and there's a sentient species who carries their consciousness around in a little bag they can set down as needed. But no, we had to be humans, where the singular conglomeration of parts is somehow responsible for both getting us up and down stairs and the contemplation of death as an idea. The intelligent-design arguers can go fuck themselves.
Unhooking the shame and dread of trying to survive thus afflicted in an extrovert's world has been the main trick. I had to decide completely on my own that it was acceptable to be as I am, so I could learn to actually enjoy the parts of my life where I'm able to be alone and quiet. It would seem like kind of a waste if anyone were to see what I actually do with that alone time,** but sometimes self-care looks a lot like one guy being bad at guitar for an hour or so.
I've been most successful at being social in relationships, though, where you can meet one person with intent and clarity. The stress of social situations is the stimulation and the expectation. In a group of the wrong size, never know where to look, where to sit, if I'm expected to speak and to whom. The self-consciousness multiplies with every guest, at least until I've reached a point where I'm just a number in a large-enough crowd and it falls off again. So I'm OK on a first date or at a concert, but I'd rather be murdered than attend a dinner party.
Lately though I've found I struggle with the relationship part of it as well, but I don't think it's the social anxiety, as much as I'd almost like it to be. I've been trying these last five years, since I left my last long relationship, to find something that will stick, but I'm finding the pull of my adult children to be too much of a draw. As frustrating as it is that they are still without girlfriends and sort of stuck locally by the realities of American economics for Gen-Z kids trying to start out in life, the end result is they're available. And so far, even given the quality of people I've met, I'd really rather spend time with these dorky young adults than do anything else.
Like the social anxiety as a whole, I'm trying to learn not to be frustrated or embarrassed by it. And ultimately you want to be clear and not hurt anyone in the process. I think I've accomplished that mostly so far, and the instances where I haven't, I get to carry the reality of someone else's disappointment with me, which can be a millstone. At least through the next milestone. Or two.
It's all choices. Compulsion as a driver goes a long way, but it's not everything, at least not when it's outside the realm of the clinical, as I'd have to say it definitely is with me. Whether it feels like it or not, I'm living the life that I want. The trick, which I've already learned once, is to convince myself that it's OK to want it. And to be open and careful with other hearts and souls in the meantime.
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*These are regular things people do, right? I guess if I have to ask, I already have my answer.
**Out-loud conversations with myself and almost blasphemously unrestrained farts
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