In which a banquet forced me to confront my introversion

I went to Carleton’s varsity banquet last night, even though I’m not on the actual varsity fencing team. They put my name on the list without even asking any questions, and I actually just walked in and sat down at the table without even showing my ticket (luckily enough, because I didn’t have the ticket). Which is all to say that it wasn’t exactly an exclusive event.

        Anyway! The banquet itself isn’t really important, and there’s nothing really interesting to say about it. What is interesting, though, is what happened afterwards. I was there for about two and a half hours, with maybe a couple hundred people there. We were unlucky enough to get the table closest to the speakers, so the music was so loud you had to lean towards the people beside you to talk to them. When all the awards had been given out, I basically just said goodbye to my friend (and none of the other people I kind of know) and took off as quickly as I could. I’m sure it was rude and etc. but I just wanted out! So I left, and I’m walking around wearing a suit, and I was just so glad to be alone. I missed the bus, met up with a guy I kinda know and hadn’t spoken to all night (he was at a different table), and he knew the way to the light rail train station so we could get back to Carleton and I could take the bus from there.

        After we got off the train and he left, I just started getting incredibly tired, as well as an instant headache. I’ll blame that part on the music. The other thing is I started thinking about stuff I should have done at the banquet (actually socialized with people, for example) and being lightly miserable. Really just wanted to get home and crawl into bed. So I hopped on the bus and did that, and remembered that, oh yeah, I’m really introverted. And that’s what this post is really about!

        I don’t dislike people in general, and I like the people I know. I’m not trying to avoid you! Really! What happens is this: I need to be alone when I work, because it’s really hard to keep up three conversations and write an essay at the same time. When I want to relax, I prefer to be by myself. And then suddenly I’m “too busy” to sign into Miranda and talk to the people I know and love. And I say I’ll be around more often, because being alone all the time is depressing and bad, and then it doesn’t really happen. And that sucks.

        The absolute worst case scenario is when I either spend a lot of time with a few people (having friends over for the entire weekend like I used to in junior high and high school) or any amount of time with a lot of people (parties, banquets). Then I get mentally and emotionally drained, and it puts me off for a long time afterwards. When I went to the Halloween party in October, I was miserable literally all weekend. It isn’t as bad this time, though I don’t know why. I’m feeling mostly better, at any rate. Having a hard time getting settled in to work, though.

        Anyway, I’m pretty sure this is an actual thing that happens to people other than just me. Odds are it’ll seem familiar if you’re introverted, because I’ve realized in retrospect that it has pretty much always happened and I just never realized it until I really thought about it. Maybe you’ll notice it from now on.

        Ok this is getting long and I’m really just procrastinating. Tl;dr I half-ass an apology, rationalize my failure to socialize, half-heartedly justify my continued status as a hermit, and try to remember from now on to accept my introversion. Denial doesn’t really get me anywhere.