Fear of Parties

Note: This post was originally planned to be posted on Monday, October 19th, but life happened. Please enjoy this belated post. No, I can't promise it won't happen again.

When we last met our hero, the Impending Groom, he was embarking on a fool's errand, to insert his opinions and ideas into the wedding plans. He hasn't yet had his head bitten off. In fact, he's made suggestions about both drinks and music and the wedding's still on. Seems he picked the perfect Bride. She even tolerates him speaking in the third person from time to time.

There are some things that are important for me to be a part of. You see, this wedding is going to be kind of a big deal for me. It's going to involve confronting what may be one of my greatest fears: parties. Before My Betrothed and I began dating, I was once at a wedding reception that seriously scared me. It was a beautiful, dull, cookie-cutter wedding reception. The guest list was huge. I was there as someone's "plus one," so I knew almost no one, and hadn't been getting along with the one person I did know. It was a big room full of strangers, and I started to have a bit of a panic response. I looked at the bride, who was beaming. Of course she was, that's what brides do on their wedding days. I looked at the groom. Surely he would be sharing some of my anxious feelings by now. He'd been through the whole ceremony with a big grin on his face, and then had to greet everyone at the reception. He had been on his feet for hours at this point. Hemust be feeling the wear.

But he was still smiling!

The thought that entered my head was that I was incapable of appearing happy for that long, especially in public. I was pretty sure I was capable of actually being happy for quite some time. However, the appearances of being happy, or even content, did not always accompany their respective emotions. I'd been to plenty of parties where I was perfectly at ease sitting in a corner listening to music, or people watching. But apparently my facial expression didn't match what I was feeling. This lead to party-goer after party-goer asking me "what's wrong," until I had said "nothing" so many times that I was annoyed, uncomfortable, even miserable, and my mood matched my face. Suddenly, there was something wrong. My usual reaction to this was to get up and leave.

The idea of a party where I was not free to leave --at which every eye in the room would be watching me, expecting me to look happy no matter how I felt -- that was a nightmare! I came to the conclusion that I would be a terrible groom.

About a month before I started flirting heavily with My Betrothed I attended another wedding. A wedding I enjoyed. There were three important differences. First, I was there alone. I was not, as I had been at the previous wedding, hours away from ending a two year relationship. Second, I knew many of the people there, including not only the bride and groom but also several of the guests and members of the wedding party. Third, the wedding was unconventional. It was not formal, it was not cookie cutter, and it was still beautiful. The happy couple explained to me that they had insisted on doing things "their way," and then pointed out a few things that had been specifically the groom's contributions. Suddenly, being a groom didn't seem so impossible.

Now, with My Betrothed, it seems more than possible. I'm looking forward to it! She makes me happier than I have ever been, and I smile when I'm with her, even when we're out in public. At other people's weddings. At parties. Though I may not have a grin plastered on my face at all times, I've still had much fewer questions of "what's wrong?"

But the purpose of this blog is not to pour sugar down your throat, forcing you to read all about how much I love my fiancée. This is a journal of my experiences helping to plan my own wedding.

You see, I think that even with My Betrothed by my side, I might start feeling a bit droopy after a few hours. Hell, we both have a tendency to "hit a wall" with social situations from time to time. So it's important to me that we do it "our way." The hard part, at least for me, is going to be figuring out what "our way" is. I've never been a party person, so how do I know what I like to do at parties? I'll start by making suggestions about drinks and music, and see where it goes from there.

~G2B

I'll try for another post Friday. It may be considerably shorter. After that, My Betrothed and I will be on vacation for 2 weeks. I cannot promise to post regularly again until the week of Veteran's Day.