I have been meaning to talk a bit about my social anxiety disorder. or rather whether or not I have it. I only realised (while at the film fest) that I have been away from social situations for the past two years. Not entirely of course, there have been social situations obviously but not on the scale that I used to deal with. In my old job I dealt with literally dozens of different personalities all day long. And then when I was doing the film festival circuit I would have ten days of full on, non-stop, social interactions where I had to "be on" so to speak. But I have spent the last four months by myself in a library writing and reading. I am way out of practice. I was relieved to be leaving P-town because I was just tired of talking to people. I was conversationally exhausted. I couldn't even do small talk. We met friends out at the B-Side on Sunday afternoon and I had nothing to say. I couldn't talk. I was so out of it.
This was on top of the conversations that I had to maintain in Durham. That was another three days of constant human interaction. Although I could hide in my hotel room which I did upon occasion. And the nerd in me responded well to the media conversations taking place. P-town was different. First of all it was much more social. And filmmakers are chatty people. Honestly I didn't care enough to hold conversations. Not that people weren't cool and nice, they were. It's just one of those things where it always felt like a gay bar and people were chatting and being chatted up and I was never good at those types of situations. Basically because I just didn't care.
Now I am not one of those people who verge on autism. I can hold a conversation. I don't think I require some drug to help me deal with people. But there are times when it gets overwhelming. A former co-worker of mine descibed it as dealing with souls. We were constantly being approached by people who needed something from us. And it was draining. This was of course a teaching environment where everybody wanted something from me. They were desperate to make art and I was the only one who could make it happen for them. I was constantly feeling like these people where energy vampires. I know that sounds mean and I don't mean it like that. I only want to imply that it involved a lot of taking and no giving. I am not an altruistic person, far from it, I was getting paid to be the person who helped others. When I left that job I was determined not to go back to being that person. When people had technical issues I pretended to not know anything. I feigned ignorance. it was difficult. I was used to jumping and helping without a second thought. I got over it.
Ugh! Social pressures. I think I am going to go and hide in the library.
names...
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