Say What?

There are certain things you don't get to do until you're older: your first driver's license, going to college, or getting a place of your very own. I haven't had this pleasure quite yet, but two of my very good friends have, and they threw a little bash on the weekend to celebrate it.
I was pretty excited to go to my first housewarming party ever, as it seemed like a cool, grown up thing to do...or something. Long story short: it was a great night filled with drinks, music, a hairless dog, Laughing-My-Ass-Off and one complete revelation on the behalf of yours truly.
It was only around ten or eleven and I was sitting on the couch, nursing a plastic cup of mango margarita punch the tender way you cradle a premature baby. I looked around the room and I realized that I didn't know anyone. Also, all of the people I didn't know, sitting around me WERE NOT TALKING. Maybe they were just comfortable and they didn't have anything to say to each other, but my awkward meter was about to blow us all to high heaven. It was like the atmosphere was waiting for me to crack. Steve Buscemi in Armageddon. I could hear the high pitched scream of a boiling kettle somewhere in the back of my brain and I found myself spitting out phrases the socially inept rehearse on cue cards before they go out for the night.
"....Did anyone see the game last night?" as well as the dreaded "....So what do you do?" (Side note: telling people you want to be a writer is as pretentious sounding in real life as you imagine it to be in your brain. I have to come up with some other occupation to give people for the next time I go to a party.) Suddenly, it was painfully obvious to me that I was the youngest person in that room and I had the incoherent social skills to prove it.

I have been spoiled by college parties where everyone is a bunch of smashed n' stoned strangers, babbling at each other incoherently about music and movies and blah de blah de blah. Parties where I myself have been messed up and uncaring of what I said or what people thought. The housewarming party is a new breed of get together. Everyone was kind of acquainted. There was French bread and brie and jello shots. (Okay maybe not a COMPLETELY new breed.) The point was, in this smaller, more intimate and mature venue, I was a fish out of water. I was going to have to escape this island on my own, or else start having conversations with a volley ball a la Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

Eventually the awkward got blown away and people began to chat, but by that point I'm pretty sure I was too gun shy to REALLY, REALLY talk to anyone. I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that I've always been better at expressing myself via writing, and casual talking with people has never been my strong suit. In my mind I'm a warm person who people get along with and click with instantly, and the reality is just blisteringly different.

The night was still a great success. Even more because I realize I'm very much a person in progress.
Also, in case you were wondering, here's the hairless dog. He belonged to the boys who lived downstairs. ADORABLE.