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Forced Socialization

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Submitted By dvboggs
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Stop Trying to Make Me Make Friends

Everybody –everybody! Knows what I am talking about. Those moments when you are driving along, maybe sitting at your computer, when all of a sudden, unbidden and unwelcome, comes the memory from your past. It is usually embarrassing, cringe worthy, and inconsequential to every other person on the planet but you. It was years ago and it still haunts you; more so since it happened in a social setting ( hey, who obsesses over the time they farted all alone in their own house at 2 o’clock in the morning.)

Sometimes I feel like I have more than most. And most of them were the result of the age old struggle of trying to “fit in”

Of course in my childhood and teen years I wanted to please, most children do. All through my twenties I wrestled with question of where I belonged and what made me happy. I was often TOLD what would make me happy and when it didn’t I believed it was a failing on my part. I suppressed and ignore my instincts. I had zero confidence that I could make good choices and second and third guessed myself in every way. I lacked a certain type of social skills. The “acceptable” social groups felt I was dull, uninteresting, refused to conform and regularly stuck my foot in my mouth. I felt they were dull, shallow, incredibly insular and had zero imagination. (but I could connect with them if I just tried harder). The truth was they were not bad people; they just weren’t my people. Attempting to fit together on any level deeper than civil acquaintance was unfair to both parties.

Part of this was my upbringing; the upbringing of a “southern lady”. A “Southern Lady” is charming. She smiles all the time at everyone and everything. Her motto is unflappable amiability. A Southern girl’s mission in life is to make everyone else feel at ease with themselves. The ideal ingredients for the parlor cocktail: people like you, want you in their circle and actively seek out your company.

“What? No? Child, you must be doing it wrong. “. For a southern white female, I was not the desired result. And on the heels of repeated failure to become a fully formed butterfly came increasing pressure to be something I was not.

It reminds me of me, my Mom and potato salad.

I hate potato salad.

Always have, always will. Throughout my child my Mom was constantly telling me. “Try it, this potato salad is different.” No, it’s not. All potato salad tastes the same. A slimy mass of sour mayonnaise and cold eggs mixed with tasteless over boiled potatoes. It smells like vomit. And to that end, that is what it induces. And let’s not even discuss what it conjures after sitting in the hot delta sun for hours at the O’Glee family barbeque. But despite my loathing of potato salad my mom keep thrusting it at me; as if rejecting it were an ugly stain on the family honor.

It’s Your Aunt Jennie’s recipe. You like Aunt Jennie.”

Yes, I do but what the fuck does that have to do with anything! And unless Aunt Jennie has a degree in particle physics that none of us know about and is able to manipulate the molecule alignment of the ingredient; Aunt Jennie’s hand in preparation of said salad will have no effect on the culinary outcome. I am still going to hate potato salad! If something is not your bowl of potato salad, it is not your bowl of potato salad and that’s ok.

After skipping down the tightrope of formative years , YA and late blooming twenties, I arrive a semi-intelligent, self-supporting adult human person. I still do not like cognate groups and forced socialization definitely is not my cup of tea. I connect with very few people. Very few people connect with me. I don’t like strangers and feel very uncomfortable in crowds. I have learned to overcome (despite or because of some bad judgement calls) to a level that allows me to fake the funk and even enjoy socialization. Over three and half decades of exposing myself to sink or swim situations I have discovered that: One, yes I can swim…Two, quite well in fact. And three, I am tired and would prefer a floaty chair……with an umbrella and a good sci-fy paperback. I ENJOY eating at a table by myself while reading a book. So when you plop down unbidden next to me and begin babbling about what we should do for our next “Officer PT” sessions or what the word of the day is, don’t be surprised when I give you the stink eye. That guy, the one that thinks he is the “popular leader” and expects you jump on his flag football, beer pong gravy train….

Me and that guy; we ain’t gonna be friends

And he is not going to like it. We will rub each other the wrong way. And that’s ok but the problem is….not wanting to participate in his little club bothers him way more than it bothers me. So he will compensate by engaging me in an manner that is increasingly juvenile and passive aggressive all the while declaring that I am not a “team player” In fact, by the end of the deployment if I haven’t told him to go suck something…..well let’s just face that’s inevitable.

So what’s the damn point?

The point is; at 37 I have a few things under my belt by now. And while everyone needs to continue to grow and change; with age comes a nice little consolation prize called self-awareness. As youth and impassioned ideals wither on the vine; the bud of disillusioned discernment (aka why do I give a shit?) blossoms. Life is too short for me to waste time revisiting a question I have found a few honest answers too. Your start gaining some peace with whom you are when you stop trying to live up to other people’s expectations. Wrestling with the ones I have set for myself is more than enough.

The point is: my circle, my choice and my focus is on the people I truly care about.

So whether it is your mother, your boss or some little piss ant in the office who wants to treat the workplace like it’s his own personnel frat…… I am prickly enough, defensive enough and often oblivious enough so Devil Damn it- get it through your head…..I don’t want to be part of anyone’s entourage!

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