As Coolidge is supposed to have said, "Don't you know that four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still?"
This gem comes via The Atlantic Online (thanks, tc), in an article on Caring for Your Introvert.
I call it the 'social hangover'. Maybe you know what I'm talking about. You're out for a day or an evening, and having a perfectly marvelous time, laughing and dishing out zingers, but as soon as you cross the doorjamb on the way out, the doubts wash in...
What if I said something stupid? What if I offended someone and now they dislike me intensely, and I'll never have another chance to make up for it?
This can go on for days.
I felt so relieved when Lynda Barry admitted to something similar:
"My going into the background was something that has happened quite naturally over the last five or so years. I noticed that it took longer and longer to recover from the public persona I put on to get through an interview or a lecture or some of the other things I was doing. It's not hard for me to be funny in front of people, but most of that is just horrified nerves taking the form of what makes people laugh, and afterwards I'd always feel dreadfully depressed, kind of self-induced bi-polar disorder. I used to live a very social life and never spend much solitary time looking at birds or reading or doing the things that sustained me as a kid. In junior high when I met the rich people, one way that I made myself welcome was that I was funny. I could get people to laugh, and I paid my way into that world with that sort of currency."
Too bad I only found this out after I embarrassed myself during a signing event for her most recent book: I was so tongue-tied and shy that she told me a joke to diffuse the situation, and I didn't get it. She had to draw it out for me.
True to form, I was so embarrassed (hung-over) that I felt sick to my stomach all the way home. Yeah, sure, it sounds funny now, but that was my one chance to convince Lynda that I would be a perfect best friend for her (I was convinced in high school that I would surely make the perfect girlfriend for my favorite pop stars as well, so you can see that I haven't changed much).
Despite the rigorous reporting of the Atlantic Online article, no cure for 'social hangovers' seems to be available (save dubious pharmaceuticals), and I'm developing a tolerance to the numbing effects of alcohol. Can you help?
Posted by care at February 27, 2003 10:00 AM | TrackBack