stiff upper lip, mcC

We went to a party today. It was the birthday party of one of my wife's friends, who I happen to like a lot too. However, that friend has a huge circle of friends (or many circles, actually), many of them she's known since her childhood. It just so happens that not only do I barely know them, but whenever I ended up talking to one of them before  - I rarely ended up liking them. The ones I do like are basically her friends from work. The rest of the gang comes mostly from the small town my wife grew up in as well. They all know each other well and are not very inviting to outsiders and I find them kind of odd (not in a good way).

It's not that they're mean or something, they just don't really talk to people they don't know (there are exceptions of course), I figured that out at the first birthday bash five years ago. They won't even talk to my wife - at least, not much - because she was never that involved in town life. While I find this very off-putting I'll usually play nicely since it's just once or twice a year. I'll try to talk to someone, succeed for two minutes, then wander on wondering what the hell these people do to be so odd and boring, but basically: no harm done.

Not this time. This time it was truly horrific. I wanted to retreat so badly I ended up trying to avoid talking to people. I chatted to my wife, focused on my food and my drink and my phone camera app. I could not keep the happy face going by any means and was probably highly embarassing to my wife (sorry, hon). Unfortunately she didn't get that I was trying to keep back and did things like letting me enter the room first, all gentlemanly but oh-so-wrong this time. To me it felt like being shoved into a position I couldn't handle. Going in first meant drawing looks and I didn't want that. Just let me hide, please, I thought and begged her to go in first.

I figure the problem wasn't the party as such, I would gladly have partied with my own friends, I think. Of course exhaustion plays a role (and my wife's aggressive undertones thanks to her depression aren't helping much either), but what most got to me was having to save face.. stiff upper lip...

I'm usually a happy, quite friendly person! Maybe I should just draw my conclusions accordingly: These people are un-entertaining (I admit my impression goes along the lines of 'small town, small minds') --> stay the fuck home, especially if you're having a bad day/week/month.

Love, mcC

(Maybe I'll post some pics that I took tomorrow.)