Social, as in Being; an ad hoc reflective essay

For reasons that may take years to tease out, I never wanted to be terribly social with my wife. Maybe when we met I was still a very quiet and somewhat afraid person. But in later years -- later as in as long as fifteen years ago, maybe ten -- I often enjoyed being out with people, so long as she wasn't one of them. I guess the idea is that I liked her company and she mine when we were a pair; but when part of a group, a party, whatever, I didn't really like her so much.

I say that now. At the time I thought I was the one who failed to measure up to some external behavioral standard. And in some ways that was true. But I also felt compelled to take her side when alcohol did its job and made her into kind of a strange and embarrassing person to be with. Social events became more stressful in that case, but rather than blame her, I blamed myself, and tried to resolve to handle it better.

Somehow over the past couple years it all became simpler. I decided I just didn't like socializing with her. I learned that I did like socializing with other people. The trick had been in finding people I liked to socialize with, and getting comfortable with the fact there was distance between me and my wife that I really couldn't, or didn't want to, close.

Long, long story not told, blah blah blah, and now I'm effectively single, and ... ?

Loving it. Here's the thing. If I want to go do something that involves people, I do. I just go. Used to be, I normally wouldn't go because I didn't feel I could leave her out, and I didn't want to go with her either. That wasn't entirely her doing. She always encouraged me to go do whatever. But it got to be stressful, because I'd get mid-evening phone calls, have to negotiate, have to explain, all that shit you have to do when you're not single. Not to mention the added tension if she heard a woman's laugh in the background. Let's be honest: I wanted to meet an interesting woman once in awhile, and she figured that out eventually; and I suppose that fact alone says volumes about where my head was, not always consciously, with regards to being married. But unlike some guys, I didn't just go and do it. Not while married. So I denied myself the opportunity and enabled my inner introvert and just stayed home.

Getting involved with Burning Man was a bid to change all that. Here was something social and creative and potentially engineering-like (didn't know it first off but the culture is heavy on designing and building stuff) that we could do together and maybe work out all these weird personal issues without breaking the rules. I hate breaking rules. I was also enthralled by the pictures one sees online. It seemed to have it all: Creative works, new people, and girls. Kill three birds with one stone? Or test our boundaries?

Whatever. There were also other social things going on that I just didn't want to stress out over negotiating. Parties advertised online, group things, concerts. Now I don't have to worry. Last night I went to a meetup of the local steampunk group. Why? I sort of dig the overall concept and style, it dovetails well not only with Burning Man but with Civil War re-enactment, and has a fair mixture of built-in nerdiness and social opportunity. Again this is not to say I couldn’t do that while married. It just didn’t feel right and I was weary of having to explain. Steam? Punks? What? Never mind that the genre seems driven by men of retirement age who like inventing semi-science fictional characters to dress up as, sometimes gals wear corsets. Whoof.

I’m shifting, if not changing, the subject. I started writing this with something else in mind but went off into the usual self-examination. The something else was really about Being Social. The steampunk group is having a Halloween party next weekend and I more or less intend to go. I don’t really know anyone but so what. I’m doubtful because the host has this weird thing about limiting attendance. He wants to keep the number at 60 and to affect this, he’s having people earn their spot by contributing labor or props or performances or funding. On the surface there’s nothing wrong with that, I guess, but.

But!

In the Burning Man world as I know it, we don’t do that shit. If there’s a party, and you are involved enough to know about it and where it is, then just show up. Glad to have you! Bring shit or not, whatever you want or need to do. If you can’t afford to bring booze or help pay for the port-a-potty or if you just don’t have time to help out, come anyway, have a great time, find a way to contribute next time. (We did charge ten bucks for Decom, but that’s a drop in the bucket considering what you get.)

In this other world, things seem a little more strict. Holding attendance at sixty. I’m not comfortable seeing a door close no matter what side of it I am on. Or maybe I just don’t like strict rules. I’d make a lousy cop. And this might purely be a personality thing, something about the guy who’s wound up in charge. I got to know him a little better last night and he does have a sort of gray-bearded strictness about him for all his genial imaginative banter. Maybe he's a Presbyterian.

Pretty soon NaNoWriMo kicks off and that’s yet another chance to mix with strangers. I started going to write-ins a couple three years ago, again as a way to get out of the house and its other occupant. Now I can choose to or not strictly on the merits. Probably I will go. It’s good to be with like-minded people, even if only to hear one another's keys clicking. Besides, it’s harder to spend significant time procrastinating when with people who might glance at your screen.

What was this self-absorbed screed about? a) Not liking strict social rules; and b) needing my space. I refer to the latter a lot when justifying leaving home. To protect feelings, is one reason. Better than saying, "To get away from you!" But it's also true and somehow, again for reasons that may take years to tease out, it just wasn't working while attached. Not for me. We'll see what that means, eventually.