Social Incompetence

Y'know, you figure that at the advanced age of 34, I would have gotten over a whole lot of the social interaction psychoses that have been haunting me my whole life. But no.. much like a nautilus, closing off compartments of his life behind him (or a slug, leaving a trail), they're still there.

We had a department-wide first-year graduate student picnic Tuesday evening; unfortunately, it appears that all of the cliques have pretty much formed already. I had no interest in trying to break into, say, the circled conversational group of soils group, or the table of the mainland Chinese clique. It appears that they were well formed, communicating, and having a basically good time. Instead, I stayed with my nice "safe" group of two other people (in my group) who were there at the picnic. It was actually entertaining enough hanging out with them.. it was just the voice inside my head reminding me, "Yes, you're supposed to be mingling, but you're too socially incompetent to so do," that bothered me.

[Well, then again, there was that first-year with the dyed red highlights that I noticed sitting by herself... enh.. probably a bad idea overall.]

However, I did entertain myself in small ways. It was a potluck picnic: I brought a tupperware full of Roast eggplant with balsamic vinegar that I made--hey--it went pretty fast too. Of course, if you've been in Canada, you might have noticed the requirements for bilingual information, so on my tupperware, below the English label, there was, "Aubergine rôti avec vinaigre balsamique." Merci beaucoup, Madame Desbonnet, may you rest in peace.