GoldbergBlog

The Anti-Social

For me, going to parties is a lot like eating crappy fast-food: I need to go back every few months or so to remember why I hate it.

Last night, I was invited to a party over at Seth’s and the pre-party thinking from me always goes something like this:

“I need to be more social.  If I’m more social, I’ll have more friends.  If I have more friends, my life will be richer.  Being social is good so I need to go to the party and socialize.”

And when I get to the party, after associating with all the people I already know and I like, I look at all the strangers and come to a stark realization:

“No one here is as interesting as they think they are and they’re certainly not as interesting as the second season of The Wire and I want to go home and watch that instead.”  I had a similar experience back in January where I was at a bar.  The music was blaring, I could barely manage a conversation, and I just thought, “I’d rather be at home re-reading Watchmen.”  Yes, that is self-centered.  Yes, that is unfairly judgmental.  I don’t really care.

I just can’t see the appeal of standing around talking to people about nothing special in particular.  Maybe the beer helps but I’m not much of a drinker so perhaps that’s the problem.  Maybe if you’re slightly buzzed, boring conversations seem more interesting.  If you’re sober like me, you’re just thinking about how you’re more interested in the turducken cooking in the oven than you are about what anyone has to say.

And I’m not saying I’m the world’s most interesting gent and that everyone should bow to my superiority (although that would be a great ego-boost).  What I’m saying is that we’re probably two boring people talking to each other and I don’t understand the point.  For instance, last night I was talking to these two women with Seth and then Seth left and one of the women quipped that “Where did he go?  Did we offend him in some way?”  And I joked back, “Yes.  He hates you.  He’s never coming back.  And he lives here so that should tell you something.”  Apparently the joke didn’t fly and since I refuse to accept the alternative that I’m not funny, I decided that these two had no sense of humor and didn’t have anything interesting to say (the previous conversation with Seth rotated around what cars were a good value–YAWN).  Realizing that I was bored, I simply stated, “I see someone I want to talk to about Battlestar Galactica so good-bye.”

Now you, dear reader, can take that one of two ways: either a) you see that as a remarkably sad statement of my nerdery and that I’m hopeless or b) I told two people that the harsh truth that I found them less interesting than a TV show.  I moved on with my night, waited for the turducken (which was delicious and worth the wait), bid adieu to the few people I liked on my way out the door and then went home and enjoyed four more hours of The Wire.

Parties, bars, clubs, and all unstructured environments seem pointless to me because I don’t care about strangers.  I don’t care about their jobs, their opinions, their hopes, their dreams, or anything like that.  Now put me in a structured environement based around a game or some objective and I’m happy.  It’s not pointless.  It’s not just all noise which is how I perceive those aforementioned environements.

I also find that being anti-social puts a higher premium on my friendships.  If I’m your friend, then you should assume that I find you valuable in some way and that you are interesting.  You may not care that you meet my standard, but you should know that you do.  It’s also why I hold on to friends so vehmently because clearly, I’m not adept at making new ones.

I will say that the night wasn’t a total wash.  In addition to the turducken, I met Christina’s boyfriend and he was a good guy who explained soccer almost well enough that I was surprised to find myself caring about the El Salvador-USA World Cup Qualifying Game on ESPN2.  This was quite an accomplishment considering my intense indifference toward the sport.  But the point is that he was interesting.  He was engaging me on a certain topic and it was because that topic was happening on a screen right in front of us.  We weren’t in a vacuum discussing trivialities.  I was actually learning something that I could use later.  Random Person X’s favorite liqueur is a snooze-fest and serves no purpose.

This may all seem a cold, calculating way to approach social situations and would leave one to wonder how, or more importantly why anyone would consider a friendship with me.  I honestly don’t know.  I just know that this is how I perceive chaotic social interactions and I don’t see my feelings changing on this topic any time soon.

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