paradigm shift into a new social understanding

i need people. i need them around me, and i need them to talk to. i need some time alone, but i think, and this is new, i need as much, if not more, time around people. i’ve had plenty of that recently, and it makes me so satisfied to be within a community. if am apart from people for even a short time, i start to fall into slight depression. a little longer and the depression begins to snarl at me again. even now i’m feeling a little down because i’m at work, away from friends (there are some people here, but they’re all at work and i’m sort of isolated at this desk). but as soon as i get home, i know that will immediately disappear.

i’m still organizing my thoughts on this, which means this will be really long and rambly.

i feel like i’m going through a paradigm revolution in regards to my social existence. where i once felt awkward around new people, i have begun to feel contentment, and even excitedness, about engaging them. it’s not an instant transformation, of course. there is still much remaining from long-lived social anxiety, but i can feel it melting away with each day. saturday was one of the great days i can remember in my existence, and one which really solidified what i had slowly begun to ascertain over the past few weeks. i’ll mainly talk about saturday in this entry, as that is fresh in my mind, and perhaps recount morsels of the events of the last month in a subsequent issue.

saturday afternoon michael arrived at my house, as father maple were scheduled to play a concert in springdale that evening. that was very exciting for me, because, well, michael’s my boy. and i was really anxious to show him the house i’d been living in recently and to introduce some of the people with whom i’ve been spending a lot of time.

side note about the house: i moved there june 4 from the apartment i was living in with my now-married ex-roommate. this new place is pretty much everything i’ve imagined about a college experience. there are 7 people living there, 2 of them girls (which is really cool)…it’s basically like a family, and it really feels like one. it’s been at least since ouachita since i’ve felt like i had a group that i belonged to, and even then it was a little uncertain at times. here i feel just like a member of an old family, and it’s wonderful. and also a hugely substantial reason this strange growth has taken place.

so i got to hang out with michael, and that is always satisfying. later zach, the drummer of father maple, and a newly married man, arrived and made us complete. the show went particularly well, according to those in the audience, and the band we opened for, christmas fuller project, was quite enjoyable, as well. they’re probably my most favorite band with which we have played.

following the show, michael and zach had to leave, but my night was just beginning. i drove back to fayetteville and joined some fayetteville friends at a birthday get-together. but we could only stay for a few minutes because big smith was playing at george’s. if you don’t know them, they’re a really superb bluegrass outfit from springfield, mo. i had never seen them live, so i was looking forward to it. little did i know it would become a major step forward in my social evolution…or at the very least make it more clear that one was happening.

i expected to do my usual thing at shows, which is to stand near the front, near my friends (always near someone i know), and enjoy the music with some head-bobbing. maybe move my feet here and there, but on the whole, i’m generally way too self-conscious about it (which is particularly odd, because i don’t really feel that way when i’m actually on stage playing myself). but this night was different. as soon as the band kicked into their set, i let loose. i felt no qualms about moving as much as i felt i needed to, and let me say, i moved quite a bit. i didn’t care if someone was watching, and i didn’t care if i looked cool, i was just in the moment, enjoying it to the fullest, with everyone else in the room.

some of those people were, of course, really attractive girls. if any of you know me at all, or have paid attention to my blog ever, you have probably figured out that i’m not really one to talk to girls that i don’t know in a social situation, especially if they’re particularly attractive. and so when this girl, this really attractive girl, started dancing close to me, and bumping into me frequently, i assumed it was on accident, or a mistake…anything rather than intentional. and so i did the only thing i could do…i ignored it. even when she gave me a firm pinch on the ass, i couldn’t help but feel helpless to do anything about it. i just kept dancing for myself. eventually she moved away, i’m sure because she realized that i wasn’t going to do anything about her. later, when my roommate peter told me he had noticed me dancing with a girl, and that he saw her eyes “burn with passion for [me],” i realized that i am, in fact, retarded.

you may be wondering, how was this one of the best nights of this pathetic man’s life? well, apart from my (perhaps eternal) regret at not dancing with that beautiful girl, i found a new level of social comfort. not to mention the major confidence boost that a girl like that actually wanted to dance with me (and finally it wasn’t merely a figment of my overactive and hopeful imagination…i actually had confirmation). and even moreso, i wanted to dance with her. i just couldn’t quite overcome my previous and life-long habit of shyness, and the nagging suspicion that i was concocting the whole thing and would be humiliatingly shot-down, which is something i am ever and consistently fearful of. but oh, i was so close. and next time, as peter pointed out, this overwhelming regret that i’m feeling now will actually motivate me to seize that moment, capture and hold it.

but the great thing is that the greatness of the night didn’t stop there. afterwards, we returned to our humble house with a few friends and gathered our instruments: peter on guitar and i on violin, with special guest ginger on harmonica. we played for 45 minutes or so in the living room, which was just a blast. oddly, i’ve never been too confident of my violin-playing skills, even though that is the instrument i’ve been on the longest, and have usually shied away from performing on it in public, except of course with an orchestra or something. anyway, that was the fourth or fifth time we’ve done our own little jam session at the house, and each time has been particularly fun.

this whole month has been quite an experience. it’s one i’m thankful for, but at the same time a little saddened, because i will be moving away from here next month. this is just the kind of belonging i’ve been waiting and hoping for throughout my college career, and in a flash it’ll be at once begun and ended. i can only hope that this new social paradigm continues to assert itself in my post-college affairs. i worry because this shift is still in transformation and growth; i can still feel a hangover from years past that threatens to cancel out any improvement at the slightest letdown. i have some great friends in little rock, though, and i’m also going to try to return to fayetteville to visit…something that i never would have seriously considered a month ago. ok, i think that’s enough words on my late-blooming social life. i am very excited about it, though…can you tell?