For most of my life, I’ve been reclusive. If I had to spend time by myself, away from other people, it didn’t bother me. Most of the time I preferred it.
I wasn’t good at, nor did I particularly like, sports. I wasn’t good at throwing a ball, I didn’t have the bulk to play football, and I didn’t like being on a team. My parents made me do Little League baseball for a few years. I like baseball well enough, but I’m not good at playing it. I almost never hit the ball when I was up at bat. I remember one time when I actually hit the ball and by whatever fluke of the Universe I managed to get all the way to third base. I don’t recall getting to go home as I think the next batter up struck out and it was the end of the inning. We had to play different positions and the time I was the catcher was horrible. I couldn’t catch the ball and had a hard time throwing it back to the pitcher. None of these traits endeared me to any of my teammates. This was before everyone got a trophy just for participating. If you didn’t pull your weight and your team didn’t make it to the playoffs you might as well have been hiding under a rock.
I was one of those bookworm kids. You know, the stereotypical always-has-their-nose-in-a-book kids. I liked reading and would have much rather spent my time reading than going to the baseball games where I couldn’t excel and bond with my teammates.
I’ve been fine with not going to parties and social events. I’ve always preferred my own company. I managed to get through high school (pure hell for introverts), college, and operate in the ‘real world’ by holding jobs and adulting. I did come to the realization that I must deal with people in this lifetime. For the last thirty (30) years or so I’ve made a concentrated effort to learn how to interface with the human race. I observed people who were good at dealing with other people and emulated what they do. I’ve developed routines for handling social situations. It’s sort of like the scene in the Terminator where T is sitting in a hotel room and the janitor knocks on the door and asks if he has a dead cat in the room. We see the viewpoint of T where a list of possible responses comes up on his internal screen, he scrolls down through them, selects one, and responds “fuck you, asshole!”
I tend to explain it to people in terms of the show The Big Bang Theory. I tell people I used to be a lot like Sheldon (better with facts and figures than dealing with people, sometimes arrogant, doesn’t like stupid people) but now I’m more like Leonard (nerdy, can hold a conversation, comfortable in most social settings).
Even though I’ve learned to interface with people, for the most part I’m still content to be by myself. People take a lot of energy and being by myself gives me time to regenerate my “social” batteries, so to speak.
I didn’t think I’d ever get married. I was perfectly fine with that. Then came Jeanette. I was already a few years into my program to learn how to interact with others when I met her. We met at The Woodlands Writers’ Guild. We were both at the Science Fiction / Fantasy / Horror table. We’d write pieces and bring them to the Guild for critique from other writers in similar genres. We struck up a friendship.
That friendship has taken plenty of strange twists over the years. Jeanette is much more social than I am. She’ll strike up a conversation with someone while waiting in line to check out at the grocery store. She introduced me to many new experiences, which also helped with my project of learning how to deal with people. One outing had a very strange start.
“I want to take you to see something, but it’s a surprise. It’s in a very bad part of town and many of the people in that part of town are gender confused.” This is how she presented one of her outings to me.
“Why would I possibly want to do that?” I responded.
“Because you’ll like it.”
That wasn’t really a good enough reason for me. It took her some more wheedling to get me to go. It turned out that a local community theatre was doing a production of Godspell. It was pretty good and in retrospect I’m glad I went.
Anyway, all this brings us to today. Jeanette and I have been married now almost five years. She has been a constant presence in my life. This last week and a half she’s been in ICU and the hospital. I’ve been at home alone with the dogs when not visiting her in the hospital.
The house is quiet. I’m getting a little more sleep than usual. I have time to myself and can get some work done on some projects.
I find I don’t like it. I don’t like being in the house alone. I miss her and want her back. Things may not always go smoothly, but even that is better than not having her here.
She’s ruined me.
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