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Weekend Assignment #317: Merry Meetings
People used to socialize with each other on street corners, at cocktail parties, at club meetings, and in a later era, at shopping malls. These days, however, we seem to do most of our socializing online. Where do you go most often for face time with friends and acquaintances?
Extra Credit: Do you ever hang out with co-workers after hours?
Warning:this post falls into what I usually hate most about blogs, which is self pitying mental masturbation. But when asked this question, it was the only response I could come up with. If you don’t like it,there’s the door.
Hello, my name is Trevor, and I’m invisible. Considering I’m 6 foot three ,280 pounds, and have a fondness for obnoxious t-shirts(current fave:Some people are alive only because it’s illegal to kill them),this seems ludicrous. Meet me at some small social occasion, and I usually can’t shut up. But then there ‘s the other 98% of the time.
I am a stay at home dad. This means a good portion of the time,my only person to talk to is a four year old. Yes, that has prepared me even further for a career in retail, but it has left my social skills impaired. If any of you laugh at that, you haven’t realized how insane hours of not talking to adults can drive you. There are days I pity my wife. She’s just been sleeping for six to eight hours, when I come along and wake her up. And she’s barely awake, when I’m off and ranting about who got what part in what remake. It’s got to be the aural diarrhea equivalent of Montezuma’s revenge some times.
So why don’t I go out and socialize.?Well, all you non parents should realize it isn’t that easy. I have these silly things called responsibilities, like getting people through their day. Getting out to a bar is a major act of planning.I’m over forty now. I’m officially “creepy old guy” every time I show up to something at a night club. I felt old for the first time at a Goth night last month. Plus there’s this whole thing people in this country have about making new friends once they’re past a certain age.
This is where part of the invisibility comes in. Single people ,or non parenting couples, tend not to make new friends with couples. There’s this unspoken rule that if you’re part of a couple, you have to be friends with both of them. They tend to see you as one unit. And if they aren’t interested in one half, they usually don’t bother. So they’ll talk to you if you’re at a meeting or something, but they want nothing to do with you outside of it.
Well,what about online, you say, or Facebook? I’ve met one real person from Facebook. There are others who have potential, but lets be honest: no one has real friends on Facebook or Myspace. Anyone who is a real friend is someone you’ve met in real life, or knew before Facebook. Go down your friends list on any of those. How many of them would you take a 4AM call from after their mom died? Before you go on about “these people are my real family”, ask how many of them actually helped ,and not just typed platitudes the last time you had a crisis? Go ahead, I’ll be here waiting when you think of an answer.
Chat rooms? Don’t make me laugh. Chat rooms went the way of the Dodo as soon as AOL and Yahoo decided there wasn’t any money in policing the spambots. If you want the lowest common denominator of expression, there it is. I stopped going to Yahoo Pagan Chat after I came back two years ago and saw the term Towel head four times in one hour. No one said boo. Racism is stupid, and I am a bigot against stupidity. It’s why I don’t have a job in marketing anymore.
I moved here to the Charlotte area three years ago. People are fairly nice and polite, and carry on a civil conversation. But that’s it. They don’t really care to know you. Most people don’t want to know new people. Studies have shown that most people have their core friends by the time they’re twenty five. Don’t believe me? Go look at your friends, either online or in real life. If you’re over thirty, how many of them have you met in the last five years? I’ve made two good friends in the last ten years. The rest are either casual acquaintances or people who are in industries I am involved in. Or authors I’m stalking.(Just kidding, Mr. Scalzi!)
So I swim through the water of people, invisible. Most don’t notice me, so I get some stuff out in my writing. But meetings? Forget it. I try to make local Pagan and gamer meetings,and they do remember me there. But that’s once a month if best. Outside of work, the only people who know me on sight are the staff at my local comic book store,and the library.
Now I can hear you say, but Trevor, you have a loving wife and family. Yes, and I’m driving them insane. Back when I had a gaming store to go hang out in, I was a somewhat saner man. Every guy needs something like that. Some guys have barber shops, others have gun clubs, or strip clubs.My nearest game or comic store is a thirty minute drive. So I’m going through withdrawals.
It’s mostly my own fault. I haven’t made enough effort I suppose. But it’s also hard when you go out to places and can talk to people(and I can,trust me) and then leave,and realize that if that person died tomorrow, you would not be one neuron’s space in their brain. So I’m invisible.
That’s the end, there is no grand finale to this entry. I’m off to numb my brain watching pro wrestling, and then to sleep. Bonus points if you can name the 90’s song I got the title of this piece from.(Hint:the other line repeated a lot in it is “An eraser of love”)
Extra Credit:I work as a book merchandising rep. I haven’t seen a co-worker in over a year.
