i’m social, sometimes, with varying degrees of success. when we lived in Norman, OK, i had plenty of opportunities to be social with varying degrees of people. which wasn’t new, but the fact that i made myself take advantage of these opportunities was new. i was able to frame these events as opportunities to support my partner, which helped a lot. she needed assistance connecting with her fellow graduate students, so i needed to help with that. it’s always much easier to help someone else than it is to help yourself.

additionally, as far as social situations go, this was probably a good training wheels situation for me. these were all academics, but they were also students, so they were, for the most part, shambling bunches of bruised nerve-endings (even moreso than regular academics). this makes sense to me. and someone always brought their significant other, so i could feel reasonably confident that i wasn’t the only one who felt like an outsider.

we went to this one person’s apartment this one time. it was alright. i didn’t get drunk enough to ever really relax, but i did really piss off this one phd candidate (not the person whose apartment it was) because i disagreed with her about the movie Roadhouse.

another time, we went to the house of an MA student who was almost finished, ready to take her exams. we didn’t really know her, but we felt obligated to come, because she made a point to invite us specifically, because she got the idea to have a game night from us. during my partner’s first year, we hosted a game night at our house (like board games, not video games), and, to my surprise, it went really well. i was sure that no one was going to show up to play Settlers of Catan and the Barbie Game, but they did, and everyone had a great time. people talked about it. the third year (i think third) we were there, there was a new adjunct, and one day in the graduate computer lab she told me that she had heard that my partner and i were into board games (which wasn’t entirely true, because i don’t really care about them), and she wanted to know if we wanted to get together with her and her wife, because they were really into games, as well. adjunct instructors were pretty separated from the full time faculty, graduate students, and even each other, so i was pretty happy to have the chance to hang out with another adjunct. however, this MA student also happened to be in the lab with us, and she got super excited about the idea of a game night. she had apparently heard about our previous game night and was always disappointed that she missed it, so i guess she saw this as an opportunity to have her own game night. i’m pretty sure this other adjunct had intended to invite only myself and my partner to hang out with her and her wife, but this MA student just commandeered the whole thing, deciding that she would have an everyone game night at her house. we sat there silently as she gamed the whole thing out in front of us. we answered weakly in the affirmative when she asked us if it was okay if she hosted. she just wanted it more than we did.

a few weeks later, she had her party. my partner and i felt obligated to attend, even when we realized that, mostly likely, there weren’t going to be many people there, because snow and/or an ice storm had been forecast as possible for that evening, which was something that sent Norman residents rushing to the store to stock up on water and bread and had them locking themselves in the house until the whole thing blew over. we could have used it as an excuse, but coming from us it would have been a weak one, as everyone knew that we’re from northern Indiana and Norman’s version of winter weather didn’t faze us in the slightest. plus, we didn’t really know this MA student that well, but she was nice enough (if a bit obnoxious), and she made a point to tell us that she really really wanted us to attend, since she considered our party the, like, inspiration for hers (and she seemed somewhat aware that she had kind of taken the event from myself and the adjunct). so we went. the new adjunct and her wife didn’t make an appearance.

it was sparsely attended, due to weather and (i kind of thought) this MA student’s overwhelming enthusiasm (though that might be just my own anxieties coloring my impression). it was just the MA student and her boyfriend, myself and my partner, another MA student and her recently finished MA student boyfriend, and an ABD phd student whose ABD boyfriend decided not to come because he was only a week away from his defense. apart from my partner and myself, it was basically only the people who attended everything. it was weak, and i felt pretty bad for the MA student. she had really gone big in preparing, even buying a bunch of 2x4s and creating a big homemade jenga tower.

those of us in attendance did our best to eat and drink as much as possible and play as many different games as we could fit in. we played The Game of Life, we played Careers for Girls (which my partner and i brought), we played Cards Against Humanity. i was pretty well drunk, but my partner was not. (frustratingly, for her, she usually can’t drink when we go out, because i have to. if i don’t drink, i’m simply not able to do these things, so if she wants to go out she has to be the sober one, because obviously someone’s got to drive home.) alas, there was no giant jenga.

after Cards Against Humanity, my drunk ass suggested (insisted?) that we play Apples to Apples, because i enjoy it more than Cards Against Humanity. (it’s the same game, obviously, but i feel like Cards Against Humanity is trying too hard, while Apples to Apples allows you to make your own fun, rather than beating you over the head with how crazy~, so totally random~, and omg just wrong~ it is.) so we played Apples to Apples. the recently finished MA student got mad at me. or, probably more accurately, this is when the recently completed MA student expressed his irritation with me.

the thing is, i have a philosophy about playing Cards Against Humanity/Apples to Apples: the rules mention that it’s acceptable to lobby for your own card when the person whose turn it is is making her decision, and i take this to heart. it’s not a strategy for winning, because that’s not something i’m concerned with, so i don’t lobby for my own card unless i believe it’s the best one. i argue, somewhat forcefully, for the card i believe is the best, most fun answer to/completion of the set-up. for the most part, no one else really does this to the degree i wish they would. i feel like this is what’s fun about the game (differing sensibilities offering their outcome to the offered set-up), so i want to, like, pump up that element of the proceedings. it never really occurred to me that this might be a problem. during this game, however, i learned that this recently completed MA student was decidedly not into it.

it’s likely i missed some cues to his frustration that he was throwing out there before this moment, but there was no mistaking his feelings when he blurted out “dude, shut up!” someone else was evaluating the offered cards and making a decision about which one was the best match for the card she had chosen to start the round. i was doing my thing, making my case for the card i felt was the best choice. (i don’t know if it was my card or someone else’s, but it doesn’t matter. it probably wasn’t the recently completed MA student’s card, though.) after however many rounds (of Cards Against Humanity and this game) and however much he’d had to drink, he had heard enough of my mess. i was stunned as he continued:

“you have an opinion about everything!”

what an absolutely bizarre thing to say, i immediately thought.

“yeah, of course i do. don’t you?”

being really honest, i can’t imagine having not an opinion on everything. i think it should be a thoughtful opinion, you should try to carefully consider why you think what you think (and your general philosophy/habits of thought) and be able to explain your perspective in a coherent, consistent way, and we should try our best to be open to new perspectives and willing to use those to revise our own, but who doesn’t have an opinion about everything that wanders its way into their ken? it’s true to varying degrees, of course, and there are elements that demand more consideration (how to raise a child, for example) than others (which card to choose during a round of Apples to Apples), but these are questions of degree. both will, naturally, instinctively inspire an opinion, no?

while i was bothered by his criticism and did dwell on it, i sort of blew this exchange off (to the extent it was possible), partly because of the rationale i just offered, but also because, tbh, this recently completed MA student was kind of a tool. he didn’t, to me, seem to be a very thoughtful person (i had shared an office with him my first year at OU), and i didn’t really think much of him. he wasn’t dumb, but he seemed (again, to me) very uninterested in anything that wasn’t perfectly aligned with his own personal interests. i felt like he just really lacked imagination and curiosity, you know?

however, there was another experience (and i can’t remember for sure if it happened before or after this failed game night) that gave me pause and made me rethink my interpretation of this exchange (i want to say it must have happened after, because it feels like i should have connected the two immediately if it happened before, but that’s not necessarily true):

we were at a (well-attended) birthday party for yet another MA student, and it was a good time. it wasn’t a game-themed party, but everyone eventually ended up in the host’s living room playing Cards Against Humanity. i was extremely drunk, and had been for most of the party, both because of how many people were there and because a good number of them were people i didn’t know (from a group of students that was years after my partner’s cohort). i was employing my regular strategy, making my endless string of arguments about which card presented the ideal mate for the setup in play.

at one point, this guy, the husband of a student who i didn’t really know, told me i needed to “settle down.” while i would, normally, be alarmed by such a clear expression of disapproval from another person, i was so drunk that i just took it as gentle ribbing and kept doing me.

later, however, i was talking to my partner on the host’s front porch, and he joined us. we were all talking about something in a really good-natured, friendly way. i can’t remember what exactly we were talking about, but at one point he digressed and looked directly at me, speaking seriously:

“hey man, i think you should relax a little. you’re getting pretty loud.”

this was not a joke, i could tell. he was seriously trying to tell me something, trying to help me out. i was stunned, only able to respond-

“is it bad?”

his answer was generous:

“not terrible, just chill out a bit.”

my partner, fully aware of how i was understanding this, assured me that i wasn’t behaving too objectionably.

i tried to not betray how devastated i was in that moment, and i thanked him profusely. he reiterated that it wasn’t that bad and that he thought i was a cool guy, he’s just offering a suggestion. we continued talking, and i was determined to keep participating, so as not to show too clearly how shook i was. eventually, we re-engaged with everyone else, and my partner and i stayed for as long as i could. i continued to try to balance not showing how upset (by staying as outgoing as possible) with also working to not be so overbearing. and also not to just fall on my ass, because i was still really drunk. eventually, we left, and my partner had another opportunity to attempt, in vain, to reassure me and prop up my sad, bruised ego.

what made this episode so particularly upsetting was that i’m constantly concerned about being obnoxious and alienating to others in this exact way. not the regular, ‘oh i’m afraid don’t no one like me’ way, but rather the ‘this fucking jerkoff won’t give anyone else an opening to say anything, god i wish he would just shut his mouth.’ it feels like i only have two speeds in interaction with others: Shut Fully the Fuck Down or Manic, Overbearing Jabbermouth. there’s no in-between. if i can drag myself out of the former then i have no concept of modulating the latter. i’m constantly terrified, when i can make myself speak, that i’m talking too much, talking too loud, just overwhelming everyone with all the bullshit i’m usually holding onto tightly inside. i constantly am asking people (mostly my partner, but also classmates or anyone i’m around in a situation where i participate in whatever’s going on) if i am, indeed, talking too loud or too much (or too much and too loudly). it feels kind of pathetic, but i’m intensely concerned about it to the point where i feel compelled to ask. and now here’s this dude basically telling me that i’m exactly the supremely objectionable person i’m afraid i am.

part of what my partner had to deal with, as a result of this episode, is recriminations, accusations that she had failed to tell me how irritating and unlikeable i really am. she responded that she constantly tried to tell me when i was becoming obnoxious, but that i consistently disregarded her. my immediate reaction to that was to scold her and tell her that she needs to be more forceful, but after having time to think about it i realized that this probably wouldn’t work. (indeed, she had insisted that she did try to be forceful.) she reassured me that it doesn’t happen often, just occasionally if i drink and i happen to be in situations where i’m especially anxious.

this is a complicated problem, and i’m still not sure what to do about it. connecting these two episodes, it seems clear that my dismissal of the recently completed MA student’s frustration at the failed game night is something that i should have taken more seriously. he’s still a tool, but it’s also likely that he was offering a useful opinion. i think about it a lot, but i’m not sure what i think about it.

we ended up never actually hanging out with that adjunct and her wife, which was disappointing, because i was part of a panel with her and she was really cool. we both applied for a lecturer position that she got, which is another thing that was brutal for me and my little brain, but that’s a whole other story that she’s only tangentially part of, like she wasn’t much part of this one.