On the Real

I'm supposed to be at a surprise birthday party at Star & The Plow in Center City within the hour. This gives me great anxiety. The kind where you purposely refuse to look at the five clocks in your apartment so that you can tell yourself "time just got away from me" instead of "I purposely f'd around until it was too late to be fashionably late," when you just don't show up. The problem is, the party is for a friend that I actually love dearly. She's a gentle friend who I feel loves me no matter what. And I feel the same for her. So, I will go to her party and I will BS it up like no other.

My biggest complaint about organized social events is the artificial conversation. I have a really hard time forming sentences that I don't mean. You will completely understand what I'm saying (if you don't already) by performing the following exercise: Upon entering a party, count on your hand(s) how many times you say the phrase, "Hi, how have you been!?" in a tone of voice you didn't know you had and to people you could care less about.

Here's an example of my least favorite type of conversation. The words that come out of my character's mouths are not what they mean. If it it was socially acceptable to say how we felt at such events, then the parenthesized text would be closer to the truth:

"Hi A, how are you?!"

(Well hello! Finally! A girl from college who isn't fat or married.)

"I'm good! How are you B?"

(I am having daily panic attacks due to the fact that I'm single and the rest of you assholes are getting hitched.)

"Great, just great, thanks."

(Well, I'm waking up every night in cold sweats because I am marrying the meanest woman I know. Take the shirt I'm wearing tonight as an example. It was either this shirt or no sexy time when we get home.)

If only we could say what we mean and mean what we say, I'd have no problem showing up at every event I was invited to. And not only would I be on time, I'd be early.