Hey kids! So I was just thinking about my life, 'cause it's Friday night and I'm really bored and I've discovered an aspect of my life where I seem to be quite deficient.
I'm not a mingler.
It seems simple, doesn't it? But I think it creates more problems and awkwardness than even I fully realize. I'm shy, some would say. But I don't know if that quite covers it. Because when I'm with friends, I can be anything but shy. I can be the most candid motherfucker on the planet. Though, when I say friends, I don't just mean any friends. Even people I have known for years, even so many as 18 years, still make me uncomfortable. So when I say friends, I mean people I am truly (or mostly) comfortable with. Sometimes it takes me a while to get to this point with somebody (which is more or less the norm) or it can be instantaneous.
Now having said all that, it's effect on me socially can be dramatic. I'm skittish around crowds, a lot of people are. This, in part, is why I don't like going to the movies. As a "film guy" that has to come off as absurd. But it's not limited to films. Parties, concerts, clubs, foreign countries, work, and school are all crowded areas. But I do go to these places, some obviously. So how do I do it?
I use a tactic that I learned to avoid stage fright. I ignore the audience. They don't exist. Of course, ordinary people aren't really the "audience" to the one-man show known as Aaron, but I apply the same principle. It helps me cope and get through a little easier. I focus on a task or whoever I'm with so tightly, that I can't see anything else. I guess that might come off as creepy to those who hang out with me, but believe me, it's harmless to you and I'm constantly working to get better at the whole thing.
But it's not a perfect system. No matter who I'm with, I can still become quiet, aloof, instantly forgetful, and damn near catatonic. Cross that with my irritable bowel syndrome, and you've got a bloated, gassy, mute on the loose. So you see, to call it shyness is rather incomplete. Yes, there is even a method to my shyness. Did you expect anything less from an idiot-savant like me?
So where does this leave me? Uncomfortable, seemingly unfriendly, and alone. The fact that I'm at home on a Friday night typing this (when I was invited to a party) ought to be some indicator of how well I know me.
But like I said, I do get out. I have to. The irony of my chosen career is that it largely depends on my ability to make connections and friends to increase the possible opportunities for advancement. My saving grace is most likely my sense of humor and my rapist wit. That, of course, was a play on words. So that should get me somewhere, and I work hard (when I work). But will I get any more comfortable with people, particularly large groups of them? I don't know. I assume so. It'll probably come with age, as I stop caring altogether. Old people do whatever they want and they don't give a fuck. Just look at Congress.
I just hope that this deficiency, or affliction, doesn't cost me anything major; career or otherwise. It's nearly cost me chances at love, to be sure. In some ways I may never know what it's cost me, in the sense that, I won't see the things that slip by but even then, perhaps that is for the best.
All I can do is continue to press on and fight (largely against myself) to move forward. I've come this far in life and I'll never give up. I don't know how. "I Won't Back Down," as Tom Petty once sang. "Keep on Truckin'," Robert Crumb once drew. "Nighty-nite. Sleep with your butt-hole tight," Dave Chappelle as "Tron" once warned. I don't think that last one is as inspirational as the previous but I hope it lightens the mood as I end this blog.
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