On My Week

I don't even know where to start, so I guess I'll just type something and use that as the beginning. Tuesday night, I hung out with a whole bunch of people from the MoHo blogosphere, and it was a real blast. I felt good about myself, and happy, and I just had a really good time. And then there was this kind of silent period. Nothing Happened. I was OK with that, for a day or two. I needed to focus on my studies and catch up on some things, and it was overall not a bad thing. But. When Friday came and the extent of the contact I'd had with anybody that lived more than 500 but less than 20,000 feet away that didn't have something to do with the alternative commencement was a brief message on my facebook wall, I was more than a little worried. Had I made somebody angry? Was I just not cool enough to hang out with everybody? Was I somehow defective in terms of my new friends?

See, I have this thing about calling people without anything to talk about. There are very few people that I really feel comfortable calling just to shoot the breeze. Especially when it's hit and miss with who's taking a final and really doesn't want their phone to ring or what. So I was kind of a recluse. I just curled up in my little ball and read about all the fun stuff that everybody else was doing that they wrote about. And I wondered some more. Had I made the right decision in telling UO that I wouldn't be joining them in the fall? Why was everybody else enjoying waffles and giant pop-tarts and stuff while I was just sitting at home on the couch with textbooks? And I mean, you can't just ask people why you're getting left out. If you even are getting left out, for that matter, and it's not just a figment of your imagination.

The reasonable conclusion to draw is that it's an oversight. People either just make an honest mistake and forget to call you, or they conclude that you must be busy with something else more important. But, when we're feeling left out, we don't come to the reasonable conclusions. I guess I shouldn't say "we" I should say "I". I tried to convince myself of the reasonable conclusions. I had seen very little evidence that could even be construed as people absolutely loathing me, and it wouldn't make any sense at all for me to just conclude that they did. But, I decided that that had to be it. I must have taken an argument too far, or not been outgoing enough, or let an awkward situation get too awkward, or let my unreserved side out for too long.

Despite my best efforts, I convinced myself that the reason nobody was calling me and everybody was having fun without me was that they didn't like having me around. Forcing myself on them would have, of course, only made matters worse. So there I was, sitting on my couch, believing that nobody wanted to do anything with me, and not wanting to be clingy and make matters worse, I didn't do anything about it.

Friday night, I called my friend Kara and we had a nice, long conversation about how she was the only person that called me with any regularity. She was able to (kind of) convince me that I wasn't as bad as all that, and that it was OK. I went for a long walk, and I almost called on Drex, but it was late and I figured he'd be asleep. Besides, I didn't have anything to say anyway. I was just feeling dejected. So I walked back to my apartment and went to sleep instead.

Saturday was a little different, but not too much in the beginning. I woke up around noon, and went for another walk. Once again, I almost called on Drex, but without anything to say it seemed like I was only creating more potential for an awkward situation. I went home again, and I saw on my facebook it said that I was invited to a Mean Girls and Boba party. I was relieved and excited, and I confirmed my attendance. Then I looked at housing options for the coming fall. I think that I may live at Roman Gardens, but I haven't completely decided yet.

Then I walked around the far east side, because I don't do that very often, and I ran into Hidden. He took me to see the boyscout museum, and I was really excited, but it was closed. <./tear> Anyway, I won't bore you with the details of the walk. 7:45(ish) came around and we went and chilled with Drex for a while before the party, and I felt vindicated. There was nothing to hint that I had done something to make him mad, and nothing to hint that I had done something to make anybody at the party mad. In fact, it was a right party. Had a great time. I think everybody there did too.

I guess the moral of the story is that I need to call people more. Calling on people can be majorly awkward if they're in the middle of something important, but just calling shouldn't be that bad. I'm making it a personal goal to not let this week repeat itself, and the next time I'm feeling left out, I'm going to call somebody and do something about it. I think that wanting to hang out with friends more often than once every four days isn't unreasonable, so that's what I'll do. If you get a phone call from me in the next little while saying, "Hey, are you doing anything tonight?" or something like that, don't assume that I want to go out on a big date or anything. It just means that I'm tired of studying and want to get out and do something.

If anybody actually read that all the way to the end, thanks.

-Stephen.