Look At Me Being All Social!

I ran up to grab dinner from this local take-out Mexican place about a half mile from the house a few weeks ago after work. As I walked into the house with my dinner, my cell was ringing; I had left it home when I took off. I answered it and found that it was a woman from work. She said she had seen me as I was leaving the strip mall where I got dinner and that she was there at the bar next door to the restaurant with some friends and asked if I’d like to come and join them.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had the same or similar invitation throughout my life. I, like so many others, have grown into adulthood during a time when happy hour was and is still a very popular after work scene. I have gone to a few, more for the bar food buffet that you find at these things than for the alcohol. In all honesty, since I turned 21, oh those many years ago, I have probably gone to “Happy Hour” less than 20 times. That’s less than once a year.

I’m sure I could go through a long, repetitive list of reasons why I have only been to this everyday social gathering on so few occasions but I’ve said it all before. Suffice it to say, I’ve never felt comfortable in these situations.

My normal reaction to any invitation like this is to come up with some totally made up reason as to why I can’t make it. I’d normally throw in an apology and a profuse thank you for the invite but explain again that whatever it was that I had made up certainly had to take precedence over whatever the invite entailed.



This one was different though; I accepted and said I’d be right down. I have never done that before. I’m the first one to come up with a million reasons as to why I can’t make it, but the truth is, I’m just too self-conscious to join in with the group.

I don’t know why I agreed to meet them and I know that for normal, social people it wouldn’t be any kind of big deal. But, for me, this was huge. Once I got in the car I was actually telling myself to not start thinking about it and just do it. The ride down to the bar takes maybe a minute and a half and the whole way there I was fighting with myself to stay on course, don’t start thinking of the millions of excuses I’ve used over the years to avoid the possibility of enjoying myself.

It’s like the golf outing I wrote about a couple months ago. I knew that I would undoubtedly enjoy myself but I get so freaked about the whole idea of socializing that it makes me feel like I’m having a heart attack. It’s really strange because I know I’ll be able to “flip the switch” and seem like the most social person in the world once I’m there. It’s the getting there thing that wears me out.

Since that night I’ve met them a couple other times and I’m hoping it gets easier as I go more often but so far it’s still a stress filled day once I know I’ve committed to showing up. The people I have met on these nights are much younger than I, late 20’s, but it’s still an attempt.

The worst part about it is the fact that I know what’s happening to my head the whole time. This is one of those times that I wish I were a complete moron (no comments from the peanut gallery) and had no idea what was happening to me. I wish I could just stop thinking so much.

A number of months ago I wrote something about mental illness. I said then that the toughest thing about being mentally ill is if you are still intact enough to know that you are ill. It’s sort of like the same thing I’m talking about now. In the previous post I asked the question, “Do the ill know they’re ill”? In this case I know the answer. I know the problem and I’m trying to work on it. I really am. Yeah, it’s a slow process, 46 years, but I’m trying.