If you asked me to honestly give my opinion, I'd tell you I was fairly social at work. I mean, I'm pretty proud of things like the amount of names I can associate with faces, having attended 2 after work social activities in 3 months, and texting at least one work friend while not at work.
Looking back at that, I just realized that two out of three things mentioned are not actually being social AT work but, uh, details, details.
The point is that if you asked anyone at work about me they'd either go, "who?" or "she's here today?!" To answer your question, yes I am okay with this.
I guess I was (once again) confronted with people's perception of me this weekend when I attended a little social occasion at boss' house. She invited our department to come eat sandwiches, drink beer, watch college football and swim in her pool.
Lorraine Pop Quiz! Which of the following activities are appealing to Lorraine?
a.) social gatherings b.) eating sandwiches c.) drinking beer
d.) watching football e.) swimming f.) all of the above g.) none of the above.
If you answered, "LOL. SHE CAN'T SWIM!" extra credit points for you for answering in sentence format. If you knew that the only correct answer is b.) perhaps you'd like to go make me a sandwich. (Seriously. I had carrot cake for dinner. Yay vegetables?)
Suffice to say I was a tad wary of this event, but almost immediately decided to so suck it up and go.
Six hours at my bosses house on Saturday taught me so many things. I've been wondering for three months and now I know: she's 52 and Korean.
I also learned that her "baby" is a 100 plus pound dog she's trained with nothing more than sheer force of will and episodes of The Dog Whisperer.
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| Picture drawn to scale. |
I went through a time where I'd spend my lunch hour at Velveeta Crap Watches watching back to back episodes of The Dog Whisperer. As freaked out as I was over the dog, I was more impressed when he wiped his paws four times before coming into the house. Also, the dog speaks Korean. Or listens in Korean. Yeah, that.
The best part was that throughout the day, everyone kept assuming I was inebriated. I had ONE sip of a drink because someone said, "taste this!" so I did. During some conversation or another, I was laughing and I snorted. Everyone was all, "oooh! Lorraine you are so dra-unk!" Um, no. I snort when I laugh like 47% of all times I laugh.
Then I said something funny and slightly insulting to someone and everyone cracked up. They were all, "oh Lorraine! You are so awesome when you drink! You should be this way more often!" Guys. Guys. I'm not drinking. I'm just talking. WTF.
Apparently I'm so quiet at work that when I talk everyone immediately assumes I've consumed all of the alcohol in my immediate vicinity.
Cool.
I hope you all had great, long weekends.
18 comments:
We introverts are like social ninjas. (P.S. I always love the way you tell a tale.)
I was actually going to go with g) none of the above, because I know that you would never eat a sandwich if there was chocolate nearby. So now I feel like a friend failure. LAME.
I did NOT have a long weekend, and if I had, I would have spent it being a little bit crippled because Sunday was Father's Day and my dad decided that he wanted to spend Father's Day going on a really hill-filled 13km bushwalk, and now my butt muscles hate me and object to me moving or standing up or walking. So yeah. I spent most of yesterday trying not to move more than I had to...
I DID make friends with a dalmatian on the bushwalk, so I guess our weekends were similar in that they included large, well trained dogs.
You know I think that people would assume that about me. I actually kind of use that to my advantage. Even if I'm not drunk, I use the fact I can say "I've been drinking" as an excuse to be a bit more extroverted. I hope that your work friends will see you as more open. Remember, talk to them :)
That happens to me too when I'm out with friends. They always think one drink gets me wasted for some reason??
You seem more social than I do. I still have a lot of work in that department... but it takes EFFORT. UGH. But I do hate when people think I'm drunk just because I'm having a good time. Am I usually that miserable looking?
A similar thing happened to me one time in New York. I was there for a journalism conference with other members of our staff and we all went out to a karaoke bar. I didn't feel like spending a gajillion dollars on alcohol, so I had maybe one soda and water the rest of the night. When we left the bar, something happened and I got really excited and one of the other staffers was like, "Sarah! We got you drunk! This is awesome!" I was like, "Umm...no...this is just me. Normally. >.>"
That logic makes it kind of a trick question, though. I think you should get extra friend points for considering the possible complexities of the scenario. Dedication.
Please ask her how she taught her dog to wipe his paws. I need to teach Ozzy that ASAP. And why isn't there a pic of your carrot cake in this post?
ahahaha I know how you feel. Someone told me I was reserved the other day. Reserved! Reserved? Ha!
If they only knew the truth about us. ;)
I ate it too fast. The carrot cake not the paw-wiping dog. That would be weird.
Just outside of I don't get drunk, most of the time I don't drink at all because I like to spend my money on better stuff. :)
Seriously. And is there no middle ground? I'm either miserable or drunk? Gee. Awesome.
I guess you could play along and get some giggles that way.
Yeah, I try to talk, but it is pretty exhausting after a while. The joys of being an introvert.
I should've known someone would think that chocolate was the secret answer. Sweeney is right. EXTRA FRIEND POINTS.
I'm going to stop using introvert and start using "social ninja." In fact, I might put that on my resume.
Thank you. :)
I'm a fairly quiet person at work. It wasn't until recently that I started to open up a lot more - letting people in and having after-shift dinners with coworkers. It's more difficult than people think. A friendship is a wonderful thing because, if it goes south, you can find a way to break ties. What happens when you work with someone? Stuff gets awkward. So yeah, I know that feel. Hopefully you had fun!
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