on edge

i am always on edge: have i said something wrong? should i have phoned that person yesterday (yes!) and is it now too late?? what if it is too late and they are angry with me? i should not have gone to that thing (4 years ago); i cannot think about it without cringing. what if i don’t know what to say when someone asks me about…something. should i go to that party? it sounds so nice, but then i have to talk to people and i will feel so inadequate. hovering from one group of people to the next, looking interested in their small-talk talk, smiling. then i will excuse myself, go to the bathroom and wonder why i said yes. and then i will go out again and hang around the edges, look at a pot plant with great interest. or the mountain, and comment how beautiful the view is when someone joins me. after the mountain thing i don’t know what to say. and we stand around awkward for a while and comment on the wine. these are nice people, by the way. i like them. but mostly i cannot talk to them in a group without feeling totally inadequate.

when people start their monologues (during small talk time or during dinner) i wonder how i can excuse myself. 20 min talking about whiskey/ talking about their kids’ schools/ their weekend away (= how far, how long to get there, which route is the best- really??). name dropping also dose not do it for me, especially as i have no idea who these (name-dropped) people are. and i do not care. i wonder how others can listen to this. but they can, and they seem to enjoy it! and by asking questions like ” you need a 4×4 to get to weekend place?” just adds fuel to the fire, and they go on for even longer.

during dinner i listen to 3 conversations at the same time, not knowing which one to engage in, moving from one to the other, and in mid-sentence (someone else’s mid-sentence) i turn away, because another conversation seems to be more interesting. this is quite rude, i realise immediately, and don’t know what to do. go back to the other one i just dumped or stay with the new one. if i am lucky i have an interesting person next to me, and we can talk. but at some stage this person will turn their other neighbour, and there i sit again with ‘n mond vol tande [a mouth full of teeth = tongue tired].

it is so exhausting. the others seem to know what en when to say what to whom, they smile and engage and look so comfortable. i know that some are not, they are just better at pretending or they hold boring monologues. but they seem unaware that nobody in their right mind would find them not boring. but nobody seems in their right mind. just me. except i am not in the right mind! i am in the wrong mind, it feels. i cannot do what “all others” can do- namely be “appropriately” spontaneous and relaxed in social situations, and enjoy myself.

when i go home i feel empty and sad. as if i don’t belong, although some of these people are good friends who appreciate and really like me. but i am the third/ fifth/ seventh/ ninth wheel. the one on the edge.