Josh, neurodivergent: Over the weekend, a family of my clients invited me to their kids' birthday party. Kelly had to work, so I immediately decided to not go. I have always avoided social situations with large groups of unfamiliar people.
Social gatherings are difficult for me because of the small talk, which I have no interest in. Part of that, a big part, is how literal I am. It took decades of weird social interactions for me to finally realize that when someone asks how I am doing, they don't actually want to know. The answer is - good; and that is that. I have also always dreaded the inevitable outcome when people want to know what I do and by default how much money I have. I don't think of someone's (or something's) net worth as their value, so it's weird to me that it is so damn important to everyone else. I went to college late in life, and as an example, anytime someone would ask what I did and I'd say I was a student, the response was always a bit odd. On the upside, I now respond that I teach at the college level and that seems more acceptable.
I also don't ask questions I don't care about, so that also is a roadblock to random social encounters. But that is something I have really put a lot of work into, and I have a prepared list of questions I ask. I still haven't gotten past not necessarily caring, so I sort of don't pay much attention- but it distracts people and takes the pressure off me so it works. The literal component might be the thing that most makes things weird, though. Anyway, I really wanted our daughter to go to the party and have fun with other kids, so I psyched myself into going. There were a lot of very nice people and many of them were very friendly, and I think I hid what a struggle it was OK. For the most part I was able to tune everything out and focus on our daughter, and that really helped. She had a great time, so it was a win. When I got home that evening I was completely spent. Usually silence helps, but I was past that and just went to sleep. Previously, I couldn’t have made it through that so that was a big deal when I realized it. A few days later, I am still pretty drained, but not to the point that I would have been in the past. In the past, when I thought being social was what I was supposed to be doing, my attempts weren’t the best. Essentially, going out was a race between social anxiety and how fast I could get tipsy to not care about the anxiety. I didn’t often, so it's not like it was a nightly or even weekly thing, but it was a thing nonetheless. I guess I did a lot of self medicating over the years trying to fit it. In all fairness, I did have a lot of fun drinking though it never really made me very social. It takes an extreme effort to be social, and that applies pretty much universally. One of my best friends invited me over to a little get together for one of our friends who will be in town a few days. My first thought upon him asking was multiple reasons why I couldn’t, though I am going to go. A few years ago Kelly took me to some graduation parties, before we knew what we do now. The first one was fine. At the second one, I completely melted down and was down for a few weeks. This is the norm for me and never anything personal and while I know it has cost me relationships, never meant it offensively.
Hopefully, that can give those who think that they will never be able to [insert thing] some hope that it can and does get better. At least for me it isn’t easy, but it isn’t soul crushing as it has been in the past. Cherish the small victories.
Staying home and learning how to do things around the house together is more our speed than a big party!
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