The One With The Christmas Party
It’s the night before christmas. And all is quiet. No snow, unfortunately. Barring some kind of (christmas) miracle there will be no white christmas for me this year. Too bad. But next week there’s a chance for snow, so it’s looking up.
I’m wasting time with Championship Manager 01/02. Look what my brazilian supertalent thinks of me. Tactical genius, that’s me. Also note the name of the club. Aarhus Plumes. I made my own club, I did.
But anyway, I promised the story of the christmas party at work. On Tuesday. My office had been selected for decoration work, so we had to show up 45 minutes early to finish it all off. We did most of the work the day before though. So all that remained was to blow up balloons and light candles, pretty much. Wow, I can’t remember the last time I blew up a balloon. I wonder why we don’t blow up balloons more often? You should all go blow up a balloon, dear readers. Just because.
We had a “heart” theme going on. Heartshaped balloons and heartshaped candy and some flowers that didn’t look much like hearts. It’s a hard theme. Heart, hard. Get it? Good.
We had the party upstairs, in the bar/restaurant. Four rows of tables, filling out the entire room to the brim. And as people started arriving I got more nervous of course. Somewhere around 80 people. Most of whom I didn’t really know. I knew that wouldn’t be easy. And I did have some bad moments. I bought myself a glass of cola and then I started to look for a place to sit. I figured we’d sit together, us from the office. But Sanne had sat down next to some other people and there were “reserved” markers on some of the plates and people were saying that other people were taking the reserved seats even though they were reserved by someone else and people were sitting down everywhere and I started to panick. Deep breath. So I went down to the other end of the room and sat down on a chair that was standing by a pillar. So I could sort of hide behind it. And then I sat there for 5 minutes and almost cried because I didn’t want to sit alone but I didn’t know where to sit and I didn’t know what to do and where was everyone else?
Then I spotted Ole and Anders and Knud Erik. Standing up at the bar still. So I went back up there and stood quietly behind them. And then when they started to go and sit down I followed them and sat down with them. Problem solved. Phew.
After a while everyone was seated, and then there was a short speech and some jolliness and then it was time to eat. It was a buffet, so that meant everyone had to get up again and go to the bar and fill their plates. So more walking and butting in to people and wondering how to not seem like a social outcast who has never tried a buffet before.
It went fairly okay, and after I was done eating I got up and said my merries to the others and then I left. At that point I had sort of had enough. I’d been there for and hour and a half, I think that’s pretty good for a social phobic loner who has never been to a christmas work party before.
And then I walked to the bus, through the almost empty streets in the city night.
With a slight sense of melancholy. Feeling both happy and sad. Happy that I had decided to go to the party and lasted a good while and survived. And sad that I still can’t be a full part of it. Sitting in that room with all those beautiful people (and I don’t mean pretty people), it makes me sad that I can’t laugh and talk and be normal with them. But okay. Last year I couldn’t go to the party at all. So there is progress. Hopefully there will be more of that and next year will be even better.
And I shouldn’t beat myself up. Must remember my therapy. I have a phobia, I have some problems. That does not make me a bad person. *looks into mirror* gosh-darned it, I’m an okay guy.
Joy to the world! It’s yule, it’s cool.