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Sociologist Erving Goffman says that social interaction is a performance, the objective of which is to give audience an impression consistent with the desired goals of the actor.

Needless to say, my performance at the Blog Parteeh (blogparteeh07) was the most exhausting one I’ve done in a while.

I’m not a social being at all. I never go to large parties, even if it happens to be at a friends’ house. When I’m at very crowded places, like at the Cubao MRT station during rush hour, the cafeteria at shcool during lunch, or at Megamall during a sale, I experience social claustrophobia. It’s that panicky sensation that comes with being trapped amidst a sea of people, that sense of doom as I wait to be trampled on by the crowd or suffocate from the carbon dioxide of their breath. There are times when I feel like being sociable and making new friends but most of the time, I hate talking to strangers and I like keeping to myself.

If I had known that the Blog Parteeh was going to be a huge event instead of the small, intimate gathering I had imagined it to be, I wouldn’t have gone at all.

I showed up fashionably late and nearly ran back in the elevator when I saw how crowded the sixth floor was. I was expecting maybe thirty or forty people, but nothing like what I saw this evening. I’m used to being at crowded places of course, my school’s campus is way too small for the student population. But at least I’m not obligated to talk or be nice to any of them; I can just listen to my iPod, push my way through the halls, and go skulk off in a corner. It doesn’t work that way in social events though. You gotta be nice, talk to people, or at the very least, smile a lot and look like you’re having a good time. I could have easily just have been a total wallflower but I’m not a kid anymore. I had to live up to the expectations required for the role of the Normal, Sociable, Semi-Intelligent Twenty-Year Old Girl Who Happens To Be The First Blogger in the Philippines (Or So People Say).

I’m not sure how well my performance went because during the last hour of the party, I was still inwardly freaking out and throwing a mental tantrum that went something like this: I want a cigarette, I don’t wanna talk to people, I don’t wanna socialize, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna! It didn’t seem like anyone was completely repulsed by me so I guess all that smiling and randomly saying the first thing that came to mind must have worked. :p I felt a lot more comfortable at the after-party at Alexa’s Deli, though. And I was enjoying the company so much that I would’ve gone to Dencio’s afterwards if I didn’t start to feel worn down from the effort of sustaining my performance.

Socializing with strangers is completely different from being with friends because with the latter, I can be as weird and annoying as I want and they’re not going to hate me for it. It’s incredibly exhausting to present myself as a normal, desirable person. Which, sadly, is something I’m going to have to get used to once I start selling my soul to the demons of the corporate world. *sigh*

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