13/02/07
Maybe tomorrow I'll wanna settle down... -
Categories: I wish I was better in social situations, sometimes I can be, but mainly I'm just flailing around in deep water when it comes to nights out. Some times I can just bang on about whatever, and lead conversation and be charming and exuberant and just go for it, the life and sould of the party. Other times, even my inner vioce decideds that it's not interested in what I've got to say "No, I've listened to you, you're too hard to talk to." And I end up trying to think of things to say that don't relate to me in some way. But it's difficult.
I don't really like talking about myself too much in social situations, after five years of psychiatric evaluation, and the conversations that flow from talking to all sorts of people when they see my act, or those who I just become friends with often move onto some of the weirder aspects of my life, and at first it's flattering, but it soon bores me. The other thing that happens quite a lot is that I'll try and move the conversation on, and they'll notice and say "well you brought it up!" when it was actually them that did. I'm accutely aware of trying to make sure I don't sound like the whole world is all about me. spending the first ten years of your life with your older siblings telling you to "shut up and stop boring people" will do that to you.
When I was a little kid I could memorise whole scripts from TV shows having just seen them once. My mum used to find it amazing that I could recount the whole "Baby eating bishop of Bath and Wells, who'd drown babies at the Christening and then eat them in the vestry afterwards" script from Blackadder II, or any episode of the Young Ones, or my favourite as a kid of the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup. On top of that I was one of these kids who learned to read before I went to school and once I did I just read anything and everything, just a thirst for knowledge about anything. As a kid I could just memorise facts like that a fly jumps backwards when it takes off, and that the whole population of the world could fit shoulder to shoulder onto the Isle of white. At night to get off to sleep I'd figure out how far away planets and stars were from earth based on the speed of light being constant at 185,000,000 K/ps/ps and based on light from the sun taking 8.2 minutes to reach earth.
as a result of this I was a precocious little brat with the knowledge of an adult and the self confidence of a child. No wonder my sister and brother used to call me boring all the time. I still wish that I'd not bothered to learn these things, and I'd trade them for social skills any day of the week.
But that it seems is the one thing I can't learn, and last night I found myself in that situation, wanting to be able to talk and have fun and get into scrapes, but they didn't happen. I need that human contact, like that puppy that's been stuck in the house all day while you've been to work, when you come home it gets so excited it doesn't know what to do and in leiu of an appropriate response just pees itself.
I'd like to state that I don't pee myself with excitement. About the closest I've come was when Dug was telling me about how he used to scare his ex-girlfriend (coincidentally also my ex-girlfriend) so that she'd scream and then burst into tears, he told me of a couple of episodes where he was hiding outside the living room looking in through a window and waited for her to notice him. but the line "It was like the time I hid in my mum's airing cupboard and jumped out at her and she nearly fell down the stairs." That got me laughing so hard that I did squirt out a little pee.
Anyway after yesterday being couped up in the house, I started writing when I got up and then before I knew it I only had time to have a quick shower and then get going out. Without the cat here to break my concentration my mind had got stuck in the place where I was just able to interact using the computer. So meeting up with Dug and Dolan for a cup of tea meant my interaction was a bit stilted, plus because of this my mind was going faster than my mouth could keep up so my stammer came back a bit, but I was amongst friends so it didn't matter really.
Then we went down to XS to see Josie Long do her show Supported by Isy Suttie, who was ace, and who I don't think I've seen before, though later on I think I realised I either think I've seen her before or I saw her when I used to drink, either way it's the first time I've seen her and remembered it, and Mathew Crosby who was also ace, and shockingly I don't remember who the third support act was but he was great and the play he did was brilliantly realised.
This is why I don't do reviews.
Anyway we got down there, and having seen most of the people in the last couple of days I was at a loss for something to talk about, when Katie Mulgrew and Vicks turned up we had a bit of a chat, Apparently Katie's been being her dad's agent for the week and is currently setting up his myspace page, as soon as it's ready he'll be in my top friends, Jimmy Cricket was one of my comedy heroes when I was a kid, and the first jokes I used to try and pass off as my own in the playground were his, I even had "L" and "R" written on my wellies when I was bout three years old. I got to see him perform last year at the Frog at Frankie Doodle's farewell party as he left to become a priest. Watching Jimmy perform was a master class, and afterwards I did the really geeky thing of going and getting his CD from my car and getting him to sign it. You're not supposed to do that when it's your friend's dad I know, but it was the only time I've done anything like that. What made it better was that whilst I was talking to him about it and doing the sad "I'm your biggest fan!" behaviour two girls came over and asked if I was performing at the Frog at any point soon and he said as they left "are they fans of yours?" I've not felt that cool since I was back stage at Glastonbury with a coule of friends who are huge fans of Stewart Lee, we were stood at the bar and Stewart walked in and went to get served behind me and their faces kind of froze and then they smiled and whispered "Stewart Lee's right behind you." I turned round and said "Hi Stewart, we met in Manchester, I'm Beth." and he said "Oh yeah, hi Beth, I remember you, how're you doing?" and I got to introduce my friends to someone they were star struck by.
To this day I still get star struck by people, not necessarily people who are big stars, just people who I really admire, and who I've been interested in for years, I forget that other people aren't and mostly don't care. I think that's how I ended up with a reputation of being a name dropper. I don't mean to, I just get really excited when I meet someone who I've seen on TV, or heard about before and get to either work with or meet in a social situation, and so I tend to tell people about it.
It was being star struck that caused the embarrassing situation with Josie the first time I met her. And that combined with my almost autistic memory for what I've seen on television, nearly led to another of those "I'm not really a stalker!" moments.
It was Mathew's birthday so after the show we went down to Al Nawaz for a Curry, with the guys who were on, and some of their families and friends who live in Manchester, and Dan Nightingale who's a friend of Josie's and a guy who's got an unbelievable talent and is also a friend of mine. But we were talking about opening lines for our sets that we used to use when we first started, and Josie told hers, and in my head I had to stifle the desire to say "you used that in your final that the BBC new comedy competition." Because I know that saying things like that lead to everyone going silent and staring at me.
After the meal I bid them goodbye and offered them a lift back to where they were staying, but there were too many of them. and I was about to walk back to my car and asked one of the girls we were with, Roxie, who was going back to Fallowfield if she wanted a lift. we had a nice chat on the way back and I headed off home.
Getting used to getting up in the early afternoon and climbing into bed at 4 in the morning, driving home at 1:30 seemed far too early to be going home on my own. It's that time of day that's the worst, that's when being bad at social interaction coupled with a need for human contact shows up at its most stark.
I think that's why I fall in love completely and utterly almost instantly. I want that contact, I want someone to worry where I am, I want someone to send a text to if I'm staying out late, I want someone to share a bed with at the end of the night. My whole life I feel like I've never belonged anywhere, and deep down I just want to belong to someone.
Oh well, Tomorrow's Valentine's day, maybe the universe will provide.
A bit more downbeat and introspective today, but tomorrow...
I love you all with all my heart.
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