This morning's Monday blues comes with added misery. The realisation that my social ineptitude is taking roots ever more deeply.
Since last night, Facebook has been awash with pictures, videos and comments about the Chorus's retreat which as taking place this week-end. This is awakening ugly feelings of envy and fear in me.
I didn't go the retreat partly because of the presence of The Young Man I mentioned in this post, but mostly because of my experience during the trip to Belfast with the Chorus (a lonely affair for me) and my general dismal track record with groups of people who know each other.
Judging by Facebook, everybody seemed to have a great time. Although I guess, only those who did have a great time would be posting.
Thinking a bit more about this and examining my feeling further, I am as I said envious. Envious that those people can actually find themselves into a group of other people they variously know, if at all, and look forward to it. Envious that they can even enjoy the experience and create new bonds. Envious that it should be so natural and easy to them.
Let's face it, I am also envious of The Young Man; of the adulation he has been getting there (though the term may be slightly hyperbolic, he is clearly liked by many); of the others, who were able to be and interact with him (nope, it seems I am not over that story yet!).
Something I don't envy, is the fact that they most probably all got drunk to various levels. But this is another barrier to my taking part in social occasion like a "normal" person, since I virtually don't drink.
And then comes the fear.
Imagining myself taking part, I am gripped by visions of awkwardness, of inadequacy and loneliness in the middle of a crowd, a happy crowd. This is a fairly new feeling but one that has been growing in strength in past couple of years perhaps as each (rare) invitations to joining a group of strangers in a pub for drinks or some such gathering. More often than not I have made excuses. The view times I haven't have not been the most positive of experiences. A reinforcement of the apprehension.
A vicious circle. I don't know how to break it.
Last night I attended a lecture by local historian Stephen Humphrey who discussed the general history of the Elephant & Castle, focussing more particularly on what he called its heyday (between 1850 and 1940). This is part of a week-long art project ( The Elephant Project ) hosted in an empty unit on the first floor of the infamous shopping centre, aiming to chart some of the changes currently happening to the area. When an historian starts talking about the Elephant and Castle, there is one subject he can not possibly avoid, even if he wanted to. Indeed my unsuspecting announcement on Facebook that I was attending such talk prompted a few people to ask the dreaded question: Where does the name of the area come from, for realz? Panoramic view of the Elephant and Castle around 1960/61. Those of us less badly informed than the rest have long discarded the theory that the name comes from the linguistic deformation of "Infanta de Castille", a name which would have become at...
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