I think you're thinking of someone else.

[underused]

I've fallen into this trap of wanting everything I write to be less than 200 words. I'm writing to match my attention span, which has been waning for a decade. I love you, internet, but you've rewired me. I'm a goldfish.

I've just emerged from a week of activity. Seeing people, doing things--the family business. My sister was visiting from overseas, so all of us and our partners spent as much time together as possible.

For a person who spends so much time alone, it was borderline surreal. I'm so terribly unsocial that after a day or two of steady interaction I feel like a part of my brain shuts down. I mean, I'm there, eating, talking, making plans--and I'm happy to be there, because these are people I love--but everything seems odd and other, like watching my life through the wrong end of binoculars. At the end of it, there's an unshakeable sense I've imagined it all.

Comments

[underused]

It's true--the ability to extricate myself from a situation makes a huge difference. Your mention of talking about things you're interested in sparked a thought for me. It occurs to me that the social situations that drain me most are where people are talking about the surfaces of their lives without any desire to dig deeper. I'm not saying it all has to be great philosophy--but I need some kind of debate or examination. if you put me at a table where people are talking about *ideas* I am THERE.

Otherwise, I think my perfect social situation is dancing. It's the one thing I love to do with other people--it's something about that collective sense of freedom and happiness.

[merikuru]

I think a lot of it comes down to people's unconscious need to sound like they're listening without actually having to put in the effort. So they only scrape the surface of things, because we tend to absorb the mistaken impression that it's narcissistic to talk about oneself in more than the most vague and passing terms. (It may well be narcissistic, but I can't say I've ever made it a secret that I'm a bit of a narcissist myself.)

Dancing is fun! There's a point, I've found, where you don't even care if you're terrible at it (if in fact you are terrible), you're just doing it because you enjoy it.

[underused]

Interesting--"listening without... [putting] in the effort." That's probably right. Although I've met lots of people who would be happy to talk about themselves forever. haha.

I don't get people who don't like dancing. I always assume it's bc they feel self-conscious. Personally, I couldn't care less if someone's good at it or not. If they look like they're having fun, it's always beautiful.

[merikuru]

I'll admit I could be one of those people. I just usually try to keep a lid on it, haha.

I've had my self-conscious "oh god I can't dance what am I even" moments, so I know the feeling to an extent. I usually ignore it, though. I must have looked pretty entertaining at my first high school dance - I was wearing this terribly dated dress (to be fair, it didn't look half bad on me) that looked like someone took a bolt of burgundy velvet and tried to squish it into the approximate shape of a rose. I proceeded to dance very energetically in this thing. It was apparently hilarious. :D