happy birthday to dean! let me just say that i didn’t get a chance to talk to all of his family, but i did have the opportunity to have a conversation with his grandmother. for an 81 year old lady, she still seems to kick it pretty good.

but, as i’m sure you’re guessing, this posting is not about dean and his family. i’ve recently come to the conclusion that i should be posting more often and that those postings should be no holds barred. i can’t be pulling punches. i can’t be sensoring myself, because if i do, then what’s the point of having a weblog at all? so, as i follow that credo from now on, here’s the scoop.

the subject at hand is one that has been a constant recurring theme in these postings. and while i run the risk of repeating myself… at this point i just don’t give a fuck. for those of you who don’t know, i’ve been seeing a shrink for a little over a year now. it’s an uphill battle, and while i have made some strides toward mental health, i’m not there yet. the events of this evening, however, make me question whether mental health is something i’m ever going to actually achieve.

the party was a pretty good size, much to dean’s credit, and while there were most people i didn’t know, or had ever seen before, there were a few people that i did know. having said that, i can’t strike up conversation with people i don’t know. even worse, the conversations with those strangers that i manager to talk to seem forced to me. artificial. i always feel like i come off boring and uninteresting. social situations like these make me horribly uncomfortable…. you know what, this isn’t what i really want to be talking about, though it is part of the issue. screw this storytelling shit, i’m just going to lay it out straight. right now i don’t have the patience with myself to give particularly unimportant details.

there was this girl at the party that i’ve been kinda interested in for some time. i didn’t go to the party for that reason alone, though it was certainly an added bonus…. or at least i thought it would be. the thing is, i didn’t really talk to her at all…. i can’t say that i really even tried. and that’s what’s at the real heart of this posting. i don’t really care if she reads it (though she most likely won’t).

i was excited to be able to see her and have the chance to talk to her…. yeah, except that i completely choked. completely! she was more or less surrounded by people she goes to school with. some i’d met before, others i hadn’t. i tried a couple of times to wiggle my way, so to speak, into their conversation, but wasn’t really successful either time. i just didn’t know what to do, or what to say. of course, the fact that they were talking about school related topics, i had no point of reference. i had no way to relate and there’s only so long i can stand in a group of people, not talking, before i feel completely awkward and uncomfortable and have to flee. and that’s what i did. i booked it out of there, both times. i was overcome with doubt and anxiety.

at this point, i don’t know what to do. i just want to curl up into a little ball and withdraw from the whole world. was it that bad, you might ask. well, it was, but add that to an already present anxiety about social functions and it’s amazing that i managed to stay as long as i did. that being said, i quit. i don’t want friends anymore. i don’t want social situations. just leave me along and let me drown in my own self-pity.

i’m just so tired of trying. i’m exhausted by the whole thing. so fine, things won’t work out with amy the way i’d like. i mean, i didn’t have much chance to begin with, but that still doesn’t make me feel any better about the fact that i couldn’t even try. i had maybe four conversations that lasted longer than a minute, three of them were with the same person. i just don’t want to bother anymore. i quit….