The other birthday party.
Jun. 1st, 2008 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
whathoI went to a birthday party last night. It was as pleasant as an evening spent with forty other people when you could alternatively be sitting around in your pyjamas and having a bath and watching the extended HIGNFY and generally not being outside can be ... except there was this one woman who got distinctly up my nose. She sat next to me in a quiet moment and asked me if I smoked. I said I didn't (after trying to exchange names) and tried to direct her towards someone who did because I thought she was looking for a light, but actually it turned out she was after a companion. Generous and everything, but I think after learning that I didn't smoke she might've moved away rather than blowing clouds into my face, but never mind. We sat in silence for a while, then she took a bottle of whisky out of her pocket and asked if I drank whisky. I said sorry, but she'd totally picked the wrong person and there was a bit of laughing and then a bit more silence before she asked me, confusingly, if I was all right. I said I was grand.
Then she said 'You're not very talkative, are you?', and in my head I became fairly cross. I don't know if I was rude not to ask her anything in return for her three closed-ended questions, but I really couldn't think of much to say. Possibly I should've offered her a tic-tac. I just think that was quite a offensive thing to put to someone you'd spent no more than five minutes with. Or possibly to anyone. I'm a bit sensitive about that anyway because sometimes I do worry at big gatherings that maybe I'm slithering inadvertently into a corner and just generally being a bit silent and uncommunicative - although actually I think I'm getting much better at properly mixing. Nor is there owt wrong with it if that's what a person wants to do ... I think hiding in the bathroom and wondering what the dickens you're doing in someone else's house at 11pm is a perfectly legitimate response. Also if you don't talk you don't run the risk of saying idiotic things. It's a winning situation. But last night I kind of was talking to people, quite a lot. Just not at that precise moment. It was quite a difficult party to infiltrate anyway because nearly everyone there knew everyone else and generally people hadn't seen one another in a long time and chatting to one of the very few strangers present wasn't really anybody's top priority, which was fine. Nonetheless, I spent a good hour or so talking to a handful of different folks before they excused themselves to talk to other people, and all I was doing when she sat next to me was staring fairly contentedly into the bonfire, thinking how pretty Shah Rukh Khan's steelworks scene was in Om Shanti Om and making up episodes of Nightingales in my head. I think those are all right things to do for ten minutes at a party. I don't think anyone has to assume it means you're less than 'all right' or a boring unsociable misfit. But probably she does now.
I'm not entirely sure how I answered. I think I said 'Gawd, I don't know, I, you know, talk to people sometimes about, you know, stuff', which I suppose had the virtue of using more words than were strictly necessary, but wasn't really as apt as 'Cheers. Excuse me' would've been. Then I got up to find some cake.
Then she said 'You're not very talkative, are you?', and in my head I became fairly cross. I don't know if I was rude not to ask her anything in return for her three closed-ended questions, but I really couldn't think of much to say. Possibly I should've offered her a tic-tac. I just think that was quite a offensive thing to put to someone you'd spent no more than five minutes with. Or possibly to anyone. I'm a bit sensitive about that anyway because sometimes I do worry at big gatherings that maybe I'm slithering inadvertently into a corner and just generally being a bit silent and uncommunicative - although actually I think I'm getting much better at properly mixing. Nor is there owt wrong with it if that's what a person wants to do ... I think hiding in the bathroom and wondering what the dickens you're doing in someone else's house at 11pm is a perfectly legitimate response. Also if you don't talk you don't run the risk of saying idiotic things. It's a winning situation. But last night I kind of was talking to people, quite a lot. Just not at that precise moment. It was quite a difficult party to infiltrate anyway because nearly everyone there knew everyone else and generally people hadn't seen one another in a long time and chatting to one of the very few strangers present wasn't really anybody's top priority, which was fine. Nonetheless, I spent a good hour or so talking to a handful of different folks before they excused themselves to talk to other people, and all I was doing when she sat next to me was staring fairly contentedly into the bonfire, thinking how pretty Shah Rukh Khan's steelworks scene was in Om Shanti Om and making up episodes of Nightingales in my head. I think those are all right things to do for ten minutes at a party. I don't think anyone has to assume it means you're less than 'all right' or a boring unsociable misfit. But probably she does now.
I'm not entirely sure how I answered. I think I said 'Gawd, I don't know, I, you know, talk to people sometimes about, you know, stuff', which I suppose had the virtue of using more words than were strictly necessary, but wasn't really as apt as 'Cheers. Excuse me' would've been. Then I got up to find some cake.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 06:15 pm (UTC)It sounds like a nice party though. Bonfire!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 06:33 pm (UTC)Otherwise, yes, it was a nice party. There was a fire and a dog and a lemony cake. Hurrah.