Thursday, April 7, 2011

I’d never admit it to her, not in a million years, but I’ve been acting on Pound Cake’s exhortation to “put myself out there” with varying degrees of success. She dispensed this nugget a while ago and at the time, I imagine, it likely appeared as if it were falling on deaf ears. I may have been temporarily deaf, in fact, as a response mechanism to her eternal optimism, which I can only describe as marrow-deep. But I’ve been markedly more social lately–or moderately less anti-social, if we want to half-empty this thing–and it’s a shift of self that even led to a stake in the ground for my career.

By no means have I become extroverted. Far from it. What’s changed is my capacity for community, a heightened ability to contend with people, bars, and alcohol, along with a keener sense of when I’ve reached these thresholds. Last weekend, I agreed to an uptown trip–dinner, then a karaoke bar–with a promise to myself that I’d pay close attention to exactly how I’d fare in these situations, not unlike how a black box recorder might function during a disaster.

There was no catastrophe, fortunately. Dinner went well enough, and it transpired exactly as it should’ve–as a low-key way to get to know some new people, and oh God I can’t believe I just said that. When it came time for the bar, a detestable venue made even more unsavory by the specter of karaoke, I steeled myself for calamity. But you know what? I negotiated the press of flesh, booze, and noise, and I packed away a third Vodka Red Bull with nominal consequence to my faculties.

After about an hour, I decided to call it quits. The karaoke stage had yet to be fully activated, which struck me as the perfect time to bail. I was the first to leave, but it didn’t matter. I shook hands, explained that bars are best for me in measured doses, and then I disappeared. “Put yourself out there.” It’s a ridiculous mantra, on one hand, and yet there’s a unique sense of agency baked into the phrase. There were indeed times when I felt like an outside force willing a set of limbs not entirely my own into some foul configurations of reality. What’s next? I answered a call to help resurrect the local chapter of the alumni association, and it kicks off with happy hour on the 28th. I can’t wait to dive into more things I dislike, optimistically speaking.