It’s not often that I’ve met someone that I wanted to get to know better. In fact it’s happened so rarely over the last few years, that if I’m honest, I think there’s maybe been all of three new friends over that entire time. It’s not that I’m going out of my way not to meet new people, it’s just that I love the friends I have and feel no driving need to expand my circle of acqaintance. Maybe it’s got something to do with being in the SCA and having a rather extended social network of some several hundred people… you tend to just get to know the old friends you had better?!?! I dont know. Whatever it is, It’s strange how we let some people into our weird little worlds, while others we seem to have around more like fringe dwellers, and yet others again that we flatly refuse to allow to see anything of our real selves!!
In some ways I think I must be the most dreadful stick in the mud… I’ve certainly been told (more than once) that I come off as aloof or even stuck up based on the fact that I’m not terribly outgoing, and often not overly social with people I don’t know. It’s a bad habit, I know… a really bad habit. And I also know that I should probably (in the interests of self improvement of course) attempt to remedy this, but…. there’s generally little of no motivation on that front. I count myself very fortunate to have some truly wonderful and amazingly genuine people in my life, people who I love and who variously enrich my life. And doubly lucky that even most of my dearest friends aren’t hugely high maintenance or demanding! I guess when it ain’t broke you don’t tend to look to fixing it. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel an absence of friends, that I don’t seek out new friendships?!??!
Anyway, I’ve totally gone off on a tangent here…
When I started working recently, I’m suddenly surrounded by a whole gaggle of new people to include amongst those whom I might recognize as acquaintances. Of the thirty people I trained with, and another forty to fifty or so people who I’ve met that were already there… I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find at least one person whom I feel sufficiently intellectually attracted to, that I should want to get to know them better!!!! But I was a bit. Unexpected perk I guess…. so far proving lots of fun…. gotta love that getting to know you banter… but I had forgotten what a minefield it can be!
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