For those that know me, I'm a pretty shy person most of the time. In the past couple of years, I've started to come around a bit and speaking a little more but my shy personality is pretty hard-wired and I don't really see it going away anytime soon.
Every now and then, being a college student, I find myself at a party of sorts because I do enjoy trying new things, even if the projected outcome is utter failure. Trying to party is definitely one of those instances.
I think it really comes down to what partying has to offer. Most parties have free beer which doesn't appeal to me on the account that I don't drink. Most parties have dancing of some sort which usually doesn't appeal to me because I'm a terrible dancer. In order to have dancing, most parties have music which I usually find as only a mere annoyance. A good party will have a lot of new people to meet which doesn't really appeal to me because, well, I'm shy.
So what do I do the whole time? Well, I usually end up being a people watcher. One of the perks of being a people watcher is that I have spent years and years of learning about human reactions and cultural norms from a secondary perspective. There's quite a lot that you don't realize when you're being a social being first-hand.
Being the people watcher at the party really just leads me to one conclusion: people just kind of stand around. The majority of people that are "partying" are just standing around with a drink in their hand and watching other people play beer pong, dance, or make complete fools of themselves. It leads me to believe that a lot of people like to party not necessarily because they actually like the activities that you would find at a typical party; they like to party because they enjoy the atmosphere. Some people standing around do primarily converse but I think those people are already familiar with one another so, if they wanted, they could just converse outside of the party instead at an apartment or something.
People enjoy parties because of the atmosphere...well at least that's my speculation anyways. I only have observations; it's not like I made a survey or something.
With that tangent aside, being the shy guy at the party can be overwhelming at times as well. In most circumstances, people will generally leave you alone. However, at a social event like a party, that's when people come up to you and want to start a conversation. As the shy person, I'll usually be caught off-guard and find myself fumbling around for the right words to use. Then the person becomes uninterested and they go away as fast as they came. Although from the outside it appears that everything reverted back to the original state of affairs, the truth is that now as the shy guy at the party I feel more awkward than ever with considerably less confidence and self-esteem than pre-encounter times. Being a shy guy at the party is truly a downward spiral.
It seems that only when the circumstances are right do I feel like I fit in at a party. Basically, any party with live bands will settle me. Parties that have at least one person that I know certainly helps too. If I find myself alone at a party, the good times will certainly end right then and there. So, particularly speaking, I tend to avoid parties except for ones that meet very specific conditions. I'm not a hater, it's just that the whole partying concept doesn't really work for me. I definitely wouldn't say that I get anxious at parties but they really don't do anything for me either. It's almost like I felt like I just wasted time, like there was something much more fulfilling I could have done instead.
As the shy guy at the party, these are my notes on what I had experienced at the party: and you won't find me there very often.
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