I'm socially deprived

Fun fact: Over the years, I've taken many of the personality tests out there, and I've always straddled the line between introvert and extrovert. From what I've read, that's unusual, because people tend to fall firmly in one camp or another. So it's surprising then that I feel like I'm socially deprived right now. It's unfamiliar territory.

Lion King is in town right now, so that means that Diana is working a ton at our wonderful theater facility. This is awesome because I love where she works, she loves where she works, and with so many hours, she makes a serious contribution to the family income. But it's a little tough for me, just because I don't have my partner around as much in the evenings after work. I wouldn't have it any other way. In some ways I'm jealous of the awesomeness that is her environment.

After something like 15 years of friendship, my BFF lives only 2.5 miles away. In all kinds of weirdness, we have mirror images of the same house, we both have Tesla's in the family, we'll soon both have solar power. But since I don't work downtown, even voluntarily, and she's on the road more now for work, we don't really see each other that much. It's kind of a failing on both of our parts, but some of it is just the reality of our situations. It still blows.

I have a surprising number of friends from Cleveland-Sandusky-Detroit down here, but I'm not good at seeing them either. Sometimes I just don't feel right about bugging them. One friend just took on the role of president of Come Out With Pride Orlando, and I see his involvement, and think, fuck, what I am I even doing with my time?

Since we moved, we don't see our neighbors as much. I love our new house, but we had a pretty good thing going over there. Sure, line of sight, we're only one kilometer away from our previous address, but we don't spontaneously roll down to neighbors, where our kids hang out and play, we drink some wine, and enjoy good company. It's still possible, it just requires more planning. We have some pretty cool neighbors in the new place, but we don't really know them that well yet, so those relationships haven't totally developed yet.

Work, well, I have a rule. Historically, I've avoided even having anyone in my reporting line, up or down, as Facebook friends. I feel like it's important to have some kind of firewall in those cases, though in a small company, that means I'm excluding pretty much everyone. But that's frustrating, because I really like the people I work with. On the plus side, all of the people I worked with at my last job are fair game, but I don't keep in touch with them very well. That's totally on me. I endure some self-loathing in that respect, because I really liked those people, and I suck at keeping in touch.

Diana works with some amazing people that I really like, but while I see them often when we go to shows as guests, that's the extent to which I know them. Beyond that, many have been at our house when we've had parties.

One of my issues is that my personality is such that I don't have a lot of capacity for trivial relationships. I want to engage with people on a meaningful level. I want to know what makes them tick, and I secretly want them to care about what I'm about. I'm genuinely shocked when people take an interest in what I do, which is odd because I tend to ask people a lot of questions about their lives when I first meet them. To that end, when I meet someone new, I don't fucking care about the weather... who are you?

One of the obvious remedies to my deprivation is to have a party. We've been in the new place now for four months, and we haven't done that yet. I guess we need to get something on the books and make it happen. But I also need to expend more energy on maintaining all of those existing relationships that are spread around. We're all "busy and important," but it doesn't mean we can't make plans.