- 15 Dec, 2025 *
The art meetup was from 10am-1pm but I’m not a morning person so i joined at like the last hour of it (12-1). I brought my pens as usual but I decided to just spend my hour sketching out two drafts instead of actually getting started on inking.
The gathering was packed this time, which was surprising. I didn’t do much talking as usual. The mismatch in degrees of talking always bothers me but I also don’t really see what the point is in forcing myself to talk, either. Chill Lady was there and making a lot of good small talk. I notice that she often randomly talks to me about Animal Crossing even though I stopped playing again due to some sort of stress a few months ago. It’s probably because she knows it’s a common topic.
I’m really not so good at the conversat…
- 15 Dec, 2025 *
The art meetup was from 10am-1pm but I’m not a morning person so i joined at like the last hour of it (12-1). I brought my pens as usual but I decided to just spend my hour sketching out two drafts instead of actually getting started on inking.
The gathering was packed this time, which was surprising. I didn’t do much talking as usual. The mismatch in degrees of talking always bothers me but I also don’t really see what the point is in forcing myself to talk, either. Chill Lady was there and making a lot of good small talk. I notice that she often randomly talks to me about Animal Crossing even though I stopped playing again due to some sort of stress a few months ago. It’s probably because she knows it’s a common topic.
I’m really not so good at the conversation back-and-forths because I don’t really travel a lot, watch a lot of movies, know celebrities, or even know the local area very well (doesn’t help that I really seem to just lack location memory in general). It often just feels like other people are living their lives as adults that make decisions and go places and do things and I’m just forever in a bubble of ignorance because I don’t feel good about spending money when I don’t earn it and because my sphere of interest is really small.
After the session some of the book club members gathered to decide lunch. Teacher Lady had suggested it on the chat but she felt really tired and had to go home. I get the sense that she’s doing too much and I probably won’t get much closer to her because of it. Bookstore Employee also dipped because they had other plans. So I ended up eating lunch with Chill Lady and her BF and Purple Corn. The other three evidently know each other much better and have hung out before. So kinda fourth wheeling here but whatever, I guess.
There’s always random lulls where I feel like I’m potentially not doing enough, like during group decision making and whatnot (where to eat etc.). I know people like my sister complain (in private) when people are too passive about this kinda thing but I still have decision paralysis when it includes other people because then I feel somewhat responsible for the experience other people have if I choose wrong. We ended up defaulting to the restaurant we went to last time, which isn’t particularly amazing to me but passable.
On the walk there, Purple Corn tried to make conversation with me by asking about my trip to Japan. I talked a bit but when I talk for a while about my own experiences, I tend to feel self-conscious about dominating the conversation with information I don’t know is necessarily useful to the other person and don’t really talk things up or make things sound exciting. I was too shy to demo the photos in my phone that I took, too. I tried asking Purple Corn about her Christmas plans to do the small talk thing. Her and Chill Lady both have pretty extensive Christmas routines, it seems, and both of them are really in touch with their families. I’m consistently an odd duck out, it seems.
Purple Corn invited me to join their movie club, which is like people take turns hosting movies at their place, and when it’s their turn they get to pick any movie they want. It was nice to be invited but I don’t think I’ll join or even drop in on a session because I don’t want to have to host people at my house. I have no experience in that and I live with my sister and her BF so it feels awkward to me. And I get really self-conscious about stuff like cleanliness since everyone’s standards are different, and what if my house has a weird smell that other people don’t like and I’m just not aware of it?
So yeah. There are so many performance barriers to everything, it feels like, so I’ll just stick to my current degree of involvement. For a heavily introverted and socially anxious person with extremely niche interests and narrow knowledge base, I think this is an ok medium for me. Maybe someday if I stop dreading even having to meet these acquaintances even a little (not because they’re mean but because I’m overly anxious), I can consider further involvement then.
For some reason the train smelled like pee, which was unsettling. But at least I’m home now (was out for 4 hours) and there are cats.