MussoLOLen is Always Right! |

Apparently, PMS also makes me a social retard. I experienced a brief flash of social claustrophobia not unlike the one I felt during the Blog Parteeh early this year. The first Taste Asia gathering was small, intimate, and had a chocolate fountain, so I expected this one to turn out the same. But nooo. There were so many people in such a small space, and nobody I could really cling to because it seemed like everyone I knew was hopping from one social circle to another. Suddenly, reading about the rise and fall of civilizations seemed like a more enjoyable way to spend the evening than going through the whole social dance of meeting new people.

Whatta ho

After spending the first half hour smoking and trying to look like I always spend social events being a wallflower by choice, I grew sick of feeling like a total loser. So I started randomly approaching people and asking for their signatures for the human bingo thing. It took a lot of effort, but soon I was getting into the swing of things and smiling and talking like I normally would. Wearing my Wordpress shirt definitely made it easier for other people to start conversations with me. But the social retardation was still there and I couldn’t come up with anything else to say after explaining that my cooler-than-me mom bought me the shirt from the Wordpress shop.

I didn’t drink anything ma, I swear!

It seems as though like-minded people attract each other because soon I was hanging out with passive socializers AJ and Rocky. Nicest people on earth, didn’t pretend to not know me when I drank my beer too quickly, talked a little too loudly, and semi-danced while standing at the buffet line. I don’t know if it was the beer or the company that put me at ease but in any case, I was back to my normal sociable self. Talking to other people took a lot less effort and I was actually having fun. I even offered to beat up the chick that stood Jayvee up, totally free of charge, but I think he believes in a non-violent form of staying away from failed dates. Oh wells.

Why are my parents cooler than me?

I was hoping that my dad would win the trip to Malaysia because if he wins, then I win too! I’m sure my parents would rather have a nice vacation without the kids bugging them to buy me this and buy me that. But I have a feeling that they want to take me and Marielle along because I’ll probably stay out all night if they’re not around, and my younger sister would hate to be stuck at home babysitting me. In any case, my dad won the DVD player which is all good. That only means the parents will be buying a nice HDTV to go along with it. And due to the lack of space, they’ll have no choice but to put the DVD player and the HDTV in my room. I’ll have to go through the trouble of rearranging the furniture and all that but hey, I’ll gladly take one for the family.

Beer face + red shirt = I’m melting into the background!

All in all, it was an awesome evening of beer drinking, hanging out and talking to awesome bloggers, and Cliquebooth camwhoring. Never mind that I spent almost four hours standing up because all the seats were occupied. (Which made me wonder — how many of those in attendance were bloggers and how many were guests of bloggers?) My parents may be cool but unfortunately, they’re not cool enough to let me stay out late on a school work night. Which makes me even more uncool. My mom practically had to drag me away, and during the walk to the parking lot we were both bitching like teenagers because our feet were killing us and the parking lot was so damn far. The radio played hiphop music during the drive home. It was very strange.

Lesson learned from the evening: beer cures all social anxieties if you approach people and talk too much, they don’t really have much of a choice but to stand there and listen to you, making you look like you have lots and lots of friends and therefore, uber-popular and cool.

Where art thou, oh Blogger Crush?

The only disappointment of the evening was that I didn’t get to talk to my Blogger Crush. Tonight was now or never because I don’t know if we’ll ever get a chance to be in the same social event again. I did say hi to him once and smiled like an idiot every time he looked at my direction, but I just couldn’t bring myself to approach him and start a conversation. AJ and Rocky even helped me think of several pick-up lines I could potentially use:

“Hi.” *holds out the human bingo paper* “Would you like to…sign me?”
“Hey. My dad just won a DVD player. Do you wanna come over and…watch DVDs?”
“Hey you. Wanna link-ex? Or would you like to exchange…something else?”

Unfortunately, my hohobagging instincts never kick in during crucial moments like this. No amount of beer could give me the liquid courage to say anything to him other than the initial “Hey!” I totally fail at life.

So this is the part where I say hi to everyone who acknowledged my existence last night so I can look liek, REALLY POPULER. Except I lost the paper where I had everyone’s signatures, so the new people I met aren’t listed here. I know, I suck.

Ade
Adam
Aileen
AJ
Anton
Benj
Chris
Gail
Jayvee
Juned
Karlo
Marc
Mike Abundo
Mike Villar
Rico
Riz
Rocky
Sasha
Shari
Sharms
Sorsi

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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