Parties are great. You turn up, you drink your booze, you watch someone embarrass themselves, you thank God that it wasn't you, you embarrass yourself, you leave. Rinse. Repeat. I enjoy a good party as long as I have a group of people I can cling to like an island in a sea of strangers.
I recently endured another bout of ageing and as it was a particularly big flare up I decided to gather some friends to witness. I love seeing my friends, I especially love seeing my friends interact with my other friends. It's this general idea that inspires me to gather them together in the first place. (I'll use my 30th as the example but this is basically how it goes down every time)
So I create an event... Send the invites... Wait. Oh God, three people have said they'll be coming! That's three more than I was expecting! How am I expected to entertain that many people? OH GOD, MORE PEOPLE ARE COMING, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? Every time I checked the event page, more people had said they were coming.
Great, says the majority of my brain, this is a good thing.
But then you'll have to entertain them, replies the Small Voice. You can only pull out Cards Against Humanity so many times before people really have to wash their hair every time you have something on.
The cold panic runs up my back. (And also down my legs and along my arms for good measure) I don't know how I pulled it off all those other times. I have no clue. How do you entertain drunk adults? I take a breath and I think about it for two seconds. You don't. They entertain themselves. I should really just know this from experience but remembering an experience from "Drunk You" is always a challenge. Reminding myself that while people were coming to the party to celebrate my birthday with me, that didn't mean I had to stand in a circle and pull off some sweet close-up magic to make it worth their while turning up. (Side note: learn some sweet close-up magic)
So, a lot of people turned up. Genuinely couldn't have been happier. For some reason every time I answered the buzzer it was in a different voice though I don't know if that was nerves or not. I then proceeded to run from one end of the house to the other, trying to chat with everyone. It was later described as looking like I was "caught between twelve conversations at once". In a way, I was. Despite what I'd told myself, I was treating every interaction like a spinning plate. This stopped after about an hour... or two. Either the alcohol had kicked in or I'd wrestled my nerves to the ground and had taken back control. Regardless, I enjoyed the night.
It's certainly not the last party I'll host, and I'll probably go through the same thing again then. I'm all for teaching my psyche a lesson at any given opportunity, however, and if that means getting drunk with my friends from the comfort of my own home I suppose that's just a cross I'll have to bare.
Being around people is scary for various reasons, even your friends, and you are not alone.
I recently endured another bout of ageing and as it was a particularly big flare up I decided to gather some friends to witness. I love seeing my friends, I especially love seeing my friends interact with my other friends. It's this general idea that inspires me to gather them together in the first place. (I'll use my 30th as the example but this is basically how it goes down every time)
So I create an event... Send the invites... Wait. Oh God, three people have said they'll be coming! That's three more than I was expecting! How am I expected to entertain that many people? OH GOD, MORE PEOPLE ARE COMING, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? Every time I checked the event page, more people had said they were coming.
Great, says the majority of my brain, this is a good thing.
But then you'll have to entertain them, replies the Small Voice. You can only pull out Cards Against Humanity so many times before people really have to wash their hair every time you have something on.
The cold panic runs up my back. (And also down my legs and along my arms for good measure) I don't know how I pulled it off all those other times. I have no clue. How do you entertain drunk adults? I take a breath and I think about it for two seconds. You don't. They entertain themselves. I should really just know this from experience but remembering an experience from "Drunk You" is always a challenge. Reminding myself that while people were coming to the party to celebrate my birthday with me, that didn't mean I had to stand in a circle and pull off some sweet close-up magic to make it worth their while turning up. (Side note: learn some sweet close-up magic)
So, a lot of people turned up. Genuinely couldn't have been happier. For some reason every time I answered the buzzer it was in a different voice though I don't know if that was nerves or not. I then proceeded to run from one end of the house to the other, trying to chat with everyone. It was later described as looking like I was "caught between twelve conversations at once". In a way, I was. Despite what I'd told myself, I was treating every interaction like a spinning plate. This stopped after about an hour... or two. Either the alcohol had kicked in or I'd wrestled my nerves to the ground and had taken back control. Regardless, I enjoyed the night.
It's certainly not the last party I'll host, and I'll probably go through the same thing again then. I'm all for teaching my psyche a lesson at any given opportunity, however, and if that means getting drunk with my friends from the comfort of my own home I suppose that's just a cross I'll have to bare.
Being around people is scary for various reasons, even your friends, and you are not alone.
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