It was all okay, of course, in the end.
The rain fell fatly and the wipers harrumphed. Last to be picked up, she got the front seat. Small consolation. Three already in the back, three already beside themselves. It was a party. Hip hip hooray! Say hello, I admonished them. Hello, said the birthday girl. Hello, said the other two. They were 8 years old. Friends since kindergarten. But three got there first. It wouldn't have been more than five minutes. But it was long enough. Long enough to stake their back seat claim. Long enough to form a gang. She tried, at first, to join in. Laughed when they laughed, even if she couldn't see what they laughed at. Remember when ... she offered up, but it was only an interruption to their flow. She was excluded, by a seat, by five minutes. Sad and sullen, she slowly withdrew. And the party raged on behind her, while the rain fell fatly and the wipers harrumphed. Later, after they'd eaten the horseshoe-shaped cake that had collapsed in the middle, and been glued back together with whipped cream and chocolate icing, there was Statues, and the losers fought over who would judge. You're so annoying, said one girl to another. And their brutal honesty took my breath away. Movie time, I announced gaily. They jostled for position on the couch, and I noticed a new gang had formed. That it was someone else's turn to be left out.
Afterwards, picking a green Fruit Burst out of the Persian rug, I wondered at how it begins. This fraught kinship. With the exception of misanthropes, we are social animals, seeking out each other's company, endlessly, expectantly. Coming together in myriad ways, joining touch teams and book clubs, accepting invitations to dinner parties and work drinks. Two, three, four times a week, we gather, mostly willingly, sometimes not, with friends, family, colleagues, strangers. We clink glasses, play games, negotiate conversations laced with tripwires, dance around each other. And all of it makes me so terribly anxious.
I was an anxious child. Now I am an anxious adult. It has only occurred to me recently though, that rather than being the wall-to-wall underlay to my personality I had always assumed, the ubiquitous foil to my more appealing traits, my anxiety has a source. That while I am far from shy, my anxiety is triggered and fuelled by social events. By how everyone will get on.
