I don’t think so, but I’m a bit nutty myself.
Missy, I’m right there with you. Hubby and I used to go to a neighborhood bar that had great appetizers. We stopped going because people wouldn’t leave us alone.
Once, it happened that we had gone into eat, and right after we ordered our food, a guy came in and ordered a glass of water, sat down beside my husband and started telling his life story. Hubby’s a friendly guy and too polite to tell people to buzz off, so he spent the rest of our meal trapped in conversation with this guy. (The punchline, of course, being that the guy needed cab fare to get to the VA Hospital, which, by the way, is served by a free shuttle.)
I sat there, seething. When Hubby and I go out it’s because we want to spend time with each other, not getting to know strangers we’ll never see again. I finally fished my book out of my bag and spent the rest of the meal reading.
I take a book with me wherever I go, but people seem to see that as a sign that I’m lonely. The outside areas to which smokers are banished are the worst, in my experience. People want to make the exile a communal experience, I suppose.
I’ll admit it freely: I’m stand-offish. I don’t like to socialize. I avoid other people to the extent of my abilities. (This habit once made the governor’s security guys tail me when he came to my workplace. I guess it did looks suspicious to have a girl hiding in shadows behind pillars to avoid the meet-and-greet.)
People always get the signals which I send to indicate I’m not interested in conversation. Since I usually have my nose stuck in a book, the coversations usually start with the other person asking what I’m reading. I answer as briefly as possible and return my gaze to the book. To me, that would indicate that the reader does not want to continue conversing, but apparently, I’m wrong.
Once I was at one of Hubby’s work seminars. (I came because I was gong to drive him home.) During the snack break, I found a chair at the back of the room and settled in to read. One of his co-workers spotted me and hurried over. “I saw you sitting over here all by yourself, and thought I’d come to keep you company!” (Translation: you needed to be rescued from being alone.)
This same set of co-workers have expressed pity for us because we “never get out.” They’re constantly sending insistant invitations that we meet them at bars after work. They simply can’t fathom that it’s our preference to stay at home.
They once convinced us to go away for a weekend with them to see a football game. I’d never seen one, so I thought it might be fun. Like Napoleon’s trip to the Battle of Waterloo, it seemed like a good idea at the time. My first indication that it was not was when one of the co-workers was helping us put our luggage in the car and lifted one of my bags. He did a double-take at the weight and asked me what was inside. “Books? All of this is books? Why do you need so many books? We’re here to have* fun*.”
We spent the next two days trudging after them from bar to bar, a practice I cannot understand. (What’s wrong with this bar? All you’re drinking is Bud anyway. The Bud in the next bar is unlikely to be different.) During the day, the wives insisted I shop with them, so I followed them around from store to store as they tried on clothes. I’ve been told I shop like a man-- if I want something, I go directly to the store I know which sells it, buy it and leave. I don’t wander around malls, visiting fifteen shops (all of which carry essentially the same merchandise.) They could not understand why I wasn’t enthusiastic about it.
They also can’t understand why I don’t participate much in their conversations. I guess it’s because I have difficulty in staying interested in what your kids are doing, work, money, work, home improvement projects and work. Nor am I as vastly entertained by the tale of what happened last time you were drunk as others are. I have tried to steer the subject to more interesting lines, such as current events (which is supposed to be an easy one), but it always quickly swerves back to the kids, work, money and what happened when Sally got drunk last time.
So, yes, when I’m someplace alone, I do get a bit peeved when strangers try to engage me in conversation, since it’s likely to be all small-talk and my book is much more interesting.
