jamesq | Doctor's Orders

One of the reason's I'm seeing a shrink is my persistent problems with anxiety over meeting new people. Simply but, it is the single biggest reason why I don't date. My homework this month is to put myself into situations where I can learn to deal with this, rather than simply avoid it. Be more social and outgoing basically.

So I was phoning people up yesterday to see if they wanted to see Bubba Ho-Tep at The Uptown with me (Today at 5:15 if you're interested BTW). I called up Jason & Chantelle and Chantelle's friend Colleen answered. To make a long story short, I ended up inviting her to the movie and she invited me to her housewarming last night. I gave a non-committal maybe and went on to my continued efforts to support Bubba Ho-Tep.

Later, I was deciding what to do with my evening. Now my plans at this point were to go home and play JKII until I got tired and went to bed. Frankly, the thought of hanging out with a bunch of strangers was a little terrifying.

"That's just the anxiety talking - It doesn't run your life, you do."
"Yeah! I'll show that annoying low self-esteem whose boss - I'm going to go to that party and I'm going to meet new people, and I'm going to enjoy it."

Note: This was just a metaphorical conversation - I don't actually talk to myself.

So I went home and was confronted with my second decision of the night - what to wear. My choices were:

The loud hawaiian shirt I wear to bowling.

A nice dress shirt.

I opted for the nice dress shirt. I got there and found out the housewarming party had a tiki theme - everyone was wearing hawaiian shirts but me. Damn. On the plus side, I got leid.

For the first half hour or so it was just Colleen, Chantelle, Jason and I. Then other guests started showing up and Chantelle and Jason had to take off.

At this point the anxiety acted up again.

"You can leave the party now - you've chatted up Colleen, so you've done the bare minimum you needed to, and you can use their leaving as an excuse to go."
"Fuck that - I'm having a good time."

I stayed for a few hours then went home when I started to get tired.

Highlights:

Lots of cuties, many of whom I actually talked to. Only one (out of four) started giving me stay-away-you-creep signals, so that's positive I think. What I did to set her off I have no idea. Maybe I was just misinterpreting a general standoffishness that had nothing to do with me.

We played a South African version of Taboo called 30 seconds.

My continuing quest to find good tasting booze met with a partial success - Root Beer Schnapps in a squirt gun (it was a shooter, get it? gaharf gaharf). I doubt I could stand to drink enough of it to actually get drunk, but a shot of it didn't suck.

Mecha Godzilla was playing on the TV with the sound off. It's amazing how good this movie goes with disco music. It had a fantastic four monster and flying saucer free for all that desperately needed a voice over by Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler.

"Omigod! Angirasu has just hit Gojiro with a folding chair!".

There was also some classic Battlestar Galactica, though we didn't pay a lot of attention to it.

Colleen: "Oh no, Apollo is being chased by four Cylon fighters!"
Me: "No problem, he'll just reverse the flaps and hit his braking thrusters - that'll put him right behind Cylons where he can blast them."
Colleen: "Thanks a lot - you gave it away."
Daniel: "You do know there was only four effects shots for the whole series and they kept recycling them over and over again right?".

It was a lot of fun and I hope I get invited to her next party. That's a hint by the way.