The Painful Realities of Socializing

'Tis the season ... for socializing, which is fine if I'm socializing with people I've socialized with before. But put me in a new setting with new people and it's like high school all over again. I'm awkward, self-conscious, anxiety-ridden and convinced my time would be better spent studying.

During the past couple years, my social life has seen relatively few new faces. My circles have stayed basically the same, and in some cases they've begun to overlap as friends from one circle get to know friends from another. There's comfort in those intersecting circles, unless things go too far and friends from those ven diagrams of my social life start getting together without me. Admit it. We all want our friends to like us more than they like any of the competition their other friends. Learning that a friend is going away for a weekend with college buddies or ditching me for someone I don't know can cause slight pangs of jealousy and concerns that I will be forgotten and left behind. It's creepy and controlling immature and silly, I know. If you're my friend I simply request that you don't put me through that. Then everything will be okay. But I've gotten off track here. We were discussing the great Dale Carnegie test of socializing with new people.

Two weekends ago, when Rob and I were in Charleston, SC, I was challenged with a scenario that I hadn't faced in years. We were spending time with Rob's fraternity brothers, two of whom threw their significant others into the mix even though I was relishing having them all to myself doing fine without them. These were women I'd never met before. I don't know about you, but it's been a very long time since I had to put on my game face and spend an evening with complete strangers. Do you know what's involved when a woman meets another woman for the first time? It's second only to prom night in terms of the stress level. All your feminist tendencies go out the window as you become ridiculously obsessed with your appearance. You want the competition her to be unattractive. Preferably with bad hair and a big butt. You want this "cheese" (fraternity-ese for "that girl is mine") to be shallow, vapid, clueless and completely without humor, wit or charm. You hope that she will be dressed inappropriately. That she didn't go to a more prestigious college than you. That whatever job she has involves no brain power whatsoever. You pray she's not one of those fitness freaks who makes you feel like a schlub. Rather than face the possibility that you won't measure up, you decide to suddenly develop chills and a fever, rendering you unable to leave your bed. Just like high school.

This coming weekend I am again faced with the opportunity to socialize with others whom I do not know well. Though I will most likely recognize many faces at this party, I will fail to remember the names of 95% of them. That's assuming we were ever introduced in the first place. While the presence of men means I won't be subject to a head-on, woman-to-woman competition, I will be even more likely to feel insecure. See, although women in the South are beautiful and have charming accents, they aren't nearly as smart and accomplished as women here in the Northeast. That's a fact. Women in my community are typically bright, cultured and excellent conversationalists. They usually dress well and have terrific figures given that 90% of them are freakin' triathletes. They make good money and/or are married to men who do quite well in their impressive careers. Most own another house somewhere in the mountains or at the beach. And should you naively believe you can hold your own with your intelligence, witty banter, basement renovations and Nordstrom Rack shoes, you'll soon learn that their kids are attending Ivy League schools on scholarship.

Besides setting women back 50 years with my gross generalizations and focus on physical appearance and income levels, what this post is really trying to say is that once you have a circle of good friends who don't cheat on you, you should show your appreciation and stop socializing.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my faithful friends!

The Popularity Factor

Relationships are tricky terrain. Of course, it's also "Tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that's right on time." (A little something for you Run DMC fans.) There are many fine lines that exist to keep relationships in balance and when one of them is crossed, the results can range from discomfort to outright chaos. While the lines differ in each marriage, I believe most of us can agree on the importance of maintaining balance in the areas of:

• Love - seems obvious, but should one partner feel they love the other more than they are loved in return, things can go downhill very quickly
• Intelligence - while Rob likes to think he's smarter than me (and nearly everyone else), I know this is untrue and therefore equilibrium is maintained
• Need - this is a tough one. Depending on the state of your mental and emotional health, the level of neediness can swing wildly. While I find I appreciate Rob more when I'm needy, should my neediness last too long, I begin to feel pathetic and balance is affected in a negative way.
• Contributions - this is not financially-based for me, but rather pertains to what's being shared in the way of responsibilities on the home front. As evidenced by my recent post "A Love Story," an uptick on the husband's side can reap bountiful rewards. But, even here, should he start contributing too much, I feel guilt and discomfort. (With time, however, I believe I could adjust.)

I was originally going to include Attractiveness in this list, but if you look at some couples, you can see that the balance is way outta whack. Personally, I'm not sure whether I'd rather be married to the sad or scary looking dude, or the head turning hunk (and vice versa for you men). Once again, I prefer a reasonable balance. I think couples should be within 2 points of each other on the completely objective 1-10 attractiveness scale. But really, this could be the subject of its own post.

What I actually want to address today is the issue of Popularity. For the past fifteen years, Rob's connection to the Phillies has provided him with a ridiculous slight advantage where popularity is concerned. Recently, however, I have begun to think that perhaps his popularity is a result of his personality. The evidence lies in the number of social get-togethers Rob is invited to "with the boys," not all of whom can be Phils fans, right? There's the Pinocchio's Beer Garden Gang, Select Company Cool Kid Dads, Heatherwold Heathens (they are not all heathens, but I like the alliteration), Client Comrades, Home Base Buddies, and heck, he even has a Men's Bible Study Group at the church. I believe Rob could go out for a beer with any one (or more) of these groups any night of the week.

When I compare Rob's popularity to my own (and comparing oneself is always an excellent idea), I'm considerably bummed out slightly concerned. The honest truth is that I am not half as popular.  I have one primary group of girlfriends and the Freakin' Angels are freakin' difficult to engage socially. In fact, I'm usually the organizer of any social get-togethers. Perhaps they're getting together without me? I'm basically tethered to my other friends through Rob and rarely receive an invitation to socialize outside of the couple-context. In a divorce, I'm pretty sure they'd pick him.

My phone's not ringing, the texts aren't coming, and my inbox offers nothing but spam and prayer concerns. It's bleak, readers, bleak.

Since my school days, I have never been one of the popular girls and frankly it's never bothered me until now. I think it's because now my popularity, or lack thereof, affects not only me, but my husband and my kids. How many dinners, parties, BBQs, getaways, game nights, social events, etc. are we not being invited to because of my clearly lacking/irritating/self-absorbed/woe's me/snarky personality? And how much does my lack of fashion sense, including knowledge of the latest jewelry designs and stylish footware impact my popularity rating?

I figure I have three options here:

1. I can sit around and blog/obsess about it.
2. I can work on my personality and my wardrobe so the cool kids will like me.
3. I can forget those snotty bitches women who don't recognize how adorable, charming, witty, intelligent, and of course, humble I am, and stick with my hard-to-get-out-of-the-house Angels and other equally wonderful, though few in number, women friends.

I bet you know which way I'm leaning.

To end on a positive note (hey, it's a new year; I'm trying new things), I don't think Rob has any friends calling him who are 15+ years younger or 40+ years older. Today I had lunch with a certain seminarian who actually made it a point to get together with little old me before she returns to school this weekend. I'm feeling pretty damn special. And on the other end of the friend age spectrum, I may be the only person you know who has maintained a friendship with a woman I met when I was in my teens. She's now a lovely 88-year-old widow.

Yes, Monty Hall, I think I'll go with what's behind Door #3!

Putting My Best Foot Forward

That about sums it up, doesn't it?

What I really want to write about is the Michael Vick salary abomination. $100 million over six years brings out my increasingly liberal Christian tendencies (sorry, dad) as I think about the number of starving children that kind of money could feed. But I won't go there.

Instead, let's talk about a closely related topic...FASHION! A subject near and dear to my heart. My sister can pick herself up off the floor now. I was totally joking. About it being near and dear to my heart. We are, however, going to talk about it.  Fashion simply won't be ignored.

No one has ever, nor will ever, accuse me of being a fashion icon. In fact, one reason I could not continue to work in a NYC ad agency after grad school was my distinct lack of fashion sense. Actually, I just didn't like my boss, but eventually the fashion thing would have caught up with me. It's not so much that I don't "get" what's in style, it's just that I'm too damn cheap sensible to spend the kind of money that being a true fashionista requires. Did you know that not only do clothes have their season, but so does jewelry? How's a girl to keep up?

The good news is that one of the many benefits of working for a religious organization is that no one expects me to look like a fashion model. Maybe if I worked for the Southern Baptists that would be a problem, but here in the American Baptist Churches, no one notes (or at least comments on) my lack of hip, trendy clothing. In fact, when I've attempted to be cutting edge (once or twice in the past 10 years), I've received some looks that said "What the hell are you wearing?" Well, it was probably "What the heck are you wearing?" since we don't swear much here.

So why do I suddenly feel so self-conscious of my fashion sense, or lack thereof?

I'm blaming it on a new season of Project Runway. I confess; I love that show. As someone who doesn't even know how to turn on a sewing machine, it amazes me what those crazy people come up with. The show also leaves me wondering why straight men are apparently incapable of clothing design. And why does Heidi Klum think any woman needs to wear skirts that short? But I digress.

When I say I've become self-conscious about my style, I'm finding my flaws to be especially egregious when it comes to my shoes. Where many/most women have a thing for shoes with dozens (hundreds?) of pairs, I own maybe 20. None of which is less than two years old. If jewelry changes seasonally you can imagine what this says about the age of my shoes. Unlike a fine wine, they haven't improved with time.

In addition to owning a comparably conservative number of shoes, I also possess a limited selection of styles:

• Four pairs of black heels - 

1) patent leather for the rare dressy occasion
2) plain old leather (which are at least 5 years old)
3) sling backs which bug the heck out of me because they always slip off my heel
4) summer sandals which I'm sure are way out of date since I have no recollection of buying them

The black family

• Four pair of brown shoes - 

1) dated pumps from the Bass outlet
2) worn out clogs from the Bass outlet (since I'm too cheap to spring for Dansko clogs)
2) small heels with a strap across the front (are they out of style now?)
3) squarish looking flats that are comfy but not current

The brown family

• Two pairs of blue shoes 

1) stretchy fabric flats that have been described as "Pilgrim shoes" by a coworker
2) a pair of completely dated pumps/heels

The blue family

I also own one pair of mid-calf height black boots - these don't go out of style, do they? And several pairs of summer sandal types which I know are woefully out of date.

The summer family

About the coolest thing I have in my shoe closet are a pair of Converse. And they are so last year. Or two years ago.

So here's the point of this post. I need someone with excellent fashion sense--who doesn't like to spend a lot--to take me shoe shopping. I'm thinking an entire shoe closet upgrade is in order. We already spent the kids' college education on refinishing the basement so what difference does it make if I blow a hundred bucks on shoes. $100 will be enough for several pairs, right?

Call me!