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It’s easy to forget I’m a waste of space sometimes.
When I’m alone, I can forget. Focused on a game, I can forget. If I’m baked enough, I can forget. But I’m all three of those things right now, and it isn’t helping at all.
I put my controller down. I can’t stop thinking about it. I haven’t been able to stop since I woke up, and I couldn’t stop last night either.
The party.
This is the worst part. The anticipatory anxiety. The fact that my mind will run and run and there’s no way to brake, no way to make it stop. It’s going to keep going and going and going, building it up, making it worse, even though the logical part of my brain assures me that it’s never as bad as I think it’ll be.
But that doesn’t mean it’ll be good either. I might not directly embarrass myself, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be stuck in my head the whole time. It doesn’t mean everyone I meet won’t come away thinking I’m a creepy, fat, antisocial loser.
I take deep breaths. In, then out. In. Then out. It’s something that’s supposed to help, and it does. For a moment. But then the moment is over, and I’m sweating and shaking and my heart rate picks back up again.
I try to think of an excuse, anything to save myself, but no good ones come to mind. Maybe I have homework... but no, it’s literally the first week. Maybe I have a date. Maybe I feel sick. That last one, at least, is technically true. But Chase knows full well that I have nothing going on tonight.
Irritation, quickly flaring into rage, burns in my chest, all directed at that stupid fucking asshole. He’s the reason I’m so anxious right now, he’s the reason it’s eight o’ clock, and I haven’t done a single thing all day because I can’t stop thinking about this stupid fucking party. It’s unreasonable to feel this way, I know that. It’s normal to invite your friends to parties. What’s not normal is to get upset about that.
I check the clock. About 30 minutes left. Half an hour more I’m spending paralyzed by anxiety, fighting back the urge to hyperventilate.
It’s agonizing, but eventually Chase gets back. He takes a shower. It takes him eight minutes. Then he asks me if I’m ready to go.
“Go where?”
He rolls his eyes and reminds me there’s a party.
“Oh, right.”
Chase drives us there. I told him I couldn’t. He asks if I’m high. I am, so I tell him that, although I’m not sure I could’ve driven even if I was sober. My legs wobble when I get out of the car, and they keep wobbling with each step to the front door. I wonder if it’s too late to back out now. I wonder if it was a mistake to let Chase drive me. Why the fuck didn’t I just take my own car? Now I can’t leave until he does.
The door opens. We walk through a hallway. We enter the living room. There’s a bunch of people there, talking, arranged in a circle. Some people are sitting on the couch; others sit on chairs. Chase sits on an armrest. I stand next to him.
I feel like a kid tagging along. I feel like Chase regrets inviting me.
They’re talking about their majors or something. I try to follow the conversation, try to chime in every now and again. But I don’t. By the time I can think of something to say that won’t expose me as an idiot, a stoner, or a sheltered rich kid, the topic changes, and the thought dies in my throat.
Occasionally, someone glances at me. I can tell what they’re thinking. Who invited that guy? Why isn’t he talking? He’s bringing down the mood. So I force myself to smile and laugh every once in a while, even though I’m not saying a single word, and even though it’s not convincing at all.
I’m hyperaware of Chase. How often he speaks, how casual he sounds. I resent him for that. I know I shouldn’t. But it means I can’t use “growing up in a small town” as my excuse. I’m just broken, somehow, someway, and I have no idea why.
Someone leaves to use the bathroom, and the conversation splinters into a number of smaller ones. Chase talks with a wolf next to him. I hang on the outside of their conversation, not wanting to enter it, but not wanting to look like I’m not making any effort to be social.
They start talking about videogames. I speak up, finally, and the wolf laughs. His name’s Vincent. He’s a culinary major. I tell him I’m doing business. He makes a joke about it at my expense, but I laugh, since I didn’t choose that shit either.
For the first time today, I’m kind of enjoying myself.
But then Chase leaves. He says he’s getting a drink. And now, I’m alone with this wolf. He prods at me with questions, and I respond, but my answers sound so boring. He checks his watch. There’s a slight hint of monotone to his voice now. I clam up. He obviously doesn’t want to talk to me. I feel bad. He seems really cool, but I’m making things awkward, and eventually he leaves to go chat with someone else. I stand there, alone, not sure what to do with myself, my paws, or my fat, gross body.
Chase doesn’t come back. I see him talking to some other people, but I don’t go to him. I’m sure he wouldn’t appreciate me following him around like an NPC.
I wish Flynn were here. I wish TJ were here. I wish Leo were here. Fuck, I wish anyone else I already have a read on, that I could actually talk to were here.
There’s not much else of the rest of the night worth mentioning. I talk to a few more people. A girl, but her voice is peppy, and I think it’s because she’s making fun of me. A guy, but he clears his throat a few times while I’m talking, and I’m pretty sure it’s because he didn’t like me. Another person, but they comment on the number of wings I put on my plate, and I’m pretty sure it’s because they think I’m a fat, disgusting piece of shit.
It’s more of the same. More of me trying and failing to disguise my anxiety. More of me trying to stay afloat by saying something cool, but shutting up the moment I see the signs that they clearly hate me. The rational part of me chimes in, trying to tell me these things I’m noticing mean nothing and that I’m doing fine, but I just can’t know for sure.
That’s what I’m fixated on now as I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling. The party’s over. I’m in my dorm. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, but, again, it wasn’t good either.
I can’t get it all out of my head. It replays over and over in my mind. I examine every word, every reaction to every word I said, in my desperate attempt to figure out their meaning. Did they all hate me? No, that’s unrealistic. But did they all dislike me? Well, it can’t be ruled out.
Overall, I’m not devastated I went. There’s a possibility it really is all in my head, and nobody realized how supremely uninteresting I am. And it was a new experience. It’s something I should be doing. I should be going to college parties. That’s what normal, sociable, well-adjusted people do in college.
But if this is something I’ll have to deal with every weekend... I shudder. I really don’t know how I’m going to survive another four years of this.