I have a tendency to approach people in one of two ways upon first meeting them:
A) With an unprecedented level of familiarity, as if I'm greeting an old friend rather than a stranger.
B) Quietly, guarded and damn near standoffish.
It's about fifty-fifty which approach I go with. Option A typically has good results, but also has a strong creep factor. As in, on occasion, the person I'm being introduced to immediately identifies me as a date rapist. Option B results in the impression that I'm either boring or sociopathic, which is great if I'm not feeling sociable.
In any case, Option A is typically my choice in one-on-one encounters or massive parties, while Option B is my choice for small gatherings. So maybe the ratio is closer to seventy-thirty in favor of Option A usage. Whatever. I'm babbling, and you're about to stop reading if you haven't already. Moving on.
Back in "the day" (before I was a recluse disdaining of human contact, and maintained a wardrobe that wasn't publicly shameful), Option A led to some awkward encounters with friends and girlfriends. Id est, I'd go to a party with someone, become the center of attention, and people at the party would ask, "Who's that (girl, dude, livestock, flora, fauna, etc.) who came with Dan?" People who had never before met me, who were friends of the person who brought me as a guest. Keep in mind, Option A is really nothing more than a defense mechanism--it's like disarming an enemy before they know they're an enemy.
I lost lots of friends and girlfriends (well, girls I was dating anyway) that way. By becoming the center of attention, stealing their thunder, whatever. Apparently, that kind of thing doesn't go over. A close friend of mine once stopped hanging out with me for two months because he felt like I was constantly throwing him into my shadow. A girl I was dating stopped talking to me for a week because we drove up to Chicago from Peoria (where I was living at the time) to meet some people she'd befriended on the internet. The whole drive up, I'm asking her what the hell am I supposed to do, how am I supposed to act, who are these people and why are we meeting them again...and then we get there and she introduces herself, I introduce myself, the others introduce themselves, and then silence. So, more out of boredom, I go nuclear with Option A, and before long I'm visiting with these people and m'lady's sitting quietly in the corner. Even when I turn to her to bring her in, she sits and shrugs at most. Then, during the silent car ride back to Peoria, there's a brief tirade about how I'm an attention whore.
I think, actually, that's how I developed Option B. The surly guy in the corner steals no thunder.
Ostensibly, I'm a conceited fuck. The proof is that I just wrote a blog about how once upon a time I was too popular. And I won't deny I'm an attention whore. However, the reality of it is that I was situationally popular. I was "Dan" in the moment, but "that guy" the next morning. And, let's not forget despite my convenient lack of focus on the issue, frequently the creep factor exceeded FDA guidelines for healthy intake.
I think my next post should be about all of the humiliating, degrading things I've done while trying to impress people. Like the time I pierced my ear with a toothpick, or, well, the list is pretty long. I've often confused "laughing with" and "laughing at," let's just settle on that point.
That ought to bring me down a notch. Good lord, this post is nonsense.
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