After my meltdown the other day, I dunno, maybe that marked a turning point of sorts; darkest before the dawn and all that shit. The main point, I guess, is that agoraphobia is a lonely business and more than anything I crave actual human contact.
I find it ironic that, other than my partner, the two people I’ve seen most since this brain-arsery took hold are:
- Someone I met online since it took hold, and,
- Someone who lives in Portugal.
People have been busy.
Very.
So, for the last couple of weeks or so, I’ve been trying incredibly hard to do something about this. I’ve arranged meetings with people in ‘safe’ places, or at least places I used to know. No one showed up. This didn’t help.
So I took another tack.
I’ve been chatting to people on Facebook, freinds of friends, mostly, and I was invited to do lunch with them on Saturday. Luckily, it was in a very familiar place within the Portswood Triangle (which is my name for the space within Portswood I can manage on my own). My partner came, too, which is just as well as I don’t think I have had the capacity to meet five new people on my own. I’m not good with groups of people (lack of practice), so the whole day was destined to be extraordinarily scary.
I got there a few minutes early and found a large table that backed into a corner. I took that corner and backed into it. Me and the corner became as one.
The long and the short of it, I had a good time; met some cool people; laughed a lot and verything went swimmingly. Next time I might even try without the valium. It only went a bit wrong when we moved from Trago and into sprinkles. It’s a loud dayglo nightmare with way too many screming children for me to be even vaguely comfortable in. THe valium did it’s job, but internally, my head was screaming like a bastard. Not idea if it showed or not.
However, this isn’t me ‘cured’. It’s a tiny step forward. I spent more of the next day, curled up on the sofa, shaking, occassionally crying. See. I’m still fucked up, but damn it, I did something utterly extraordinary at the weekend.
It actually felt like the social life I’d been hankering for was begining to take place. Exciting, no? Of course, this is totally going to freak them out now. DAMMIT! And this doesn’t let any of my other friends off the hook, either. So, nyah nyah nyah.
Next time, or at least in the not too distant future, I’d like to give The Hobbit a go. On a quite night. When the students aren’t around.
Gulp.
I Have Issues With It, Obviously... 