Mingle, mingle, mingle!

What is reality…?

I’m not really sure.

I mean, have you ever really thought about how much our own personal experiences and points of view cloud – or direct – everything we think and believe to be… real?

I was at a high school alumni holiday party the other night. I probably would not have been there at all, except for the fact that I am on the Alumni Council and “expected” to attend. I eschew social functions if at all possible. My idea of mingling (NOT an activity at the top of my “to do” list by any means) is to seek out and talk to people I know. The thought of walking up to and talking with complete strangers is enough to put me in cardiac arrest.

Now, I know – or at least, I have heard – that there are people out there who THRIVE on this sort of thing. They actually gain or acquire energy by talking with others, particularly people they do not know.

[I would type that entire paragraph over again for emphasis, but you get my point. Or not.]

Hello??!!??? Enjoy being in a room full of total strangers and…. [gasp!] talking(!?!) with them????

Uh-uh.

Ain’t happening.

No way. No how.

It was bad enough that I had to participate in a phonathon earlier in the year, asking other alumni to contribute money to their alma mater.

Did they ask me to call my classmates or ANYONE I knew?????? No. They gave us a chunk of the list, in alphabetical order. There was one – ONE – count them – ONE of my classmates on the list. I started with him, and he wasn’t even home.

Then I moved on to…. well, OK, they graduated within so many years of me, I might know them or remember them or NOT. I’ll call them.

And the whole time I am screaming out loud in silence inside my head: “Don’t pick up! Don’t pick up! Don’t pick up! Please, dear God in heaven, let it go to voice mail!” And if it did…. WHEW!!!!

That meant I only had to leave a very poorly delivered message full of stuttering and whatnot.
And if they DID answer… oh, my! A conversation full of stuttering and whatnot. But in real life. In real time. With someone else I didn’t even know.

Awkward.

Horrible.

So… there I was, on Saturday night, at a holiday reception for alumni. Ninety percent of those present were from classes that had just graduated. Although I was informed that the class with the largest number of attendees was the one where everyone had just turned 21 and was now allowed to drink!

When I arrived, I had been instructed to find my nametag, which included my graduating class year. There was a huge green dot on the nametag, and I asked what that meant.

“It means you can drink,” I was told.

OK.

I am forty-five. NO ONE is going to think I am underage.

They had red dots for those not old enough to drink.

Hello!!??

Couldn’t they have made it simpler by just putting red dots on those not old enough to drink????

Well, THAT in and unto itself made me go in search of a drink.

The holiday reception was in the school library. A vast expanse, temporarily decorated with a tree and strings of white lights. It looked quite nice, actually. The “bar” was behind the checkout desk. That was a bit much for me, being a librarian and all. But I dealt with it.

I chatted amiably enough, while in line for a drink, with a grad who was four years younger than I, so not that much younger in the grand scheme of things, I just didn’t really know him at all from Adam. Four years is a huge chasm when you are talking about high school. Our mothers knew each other, so that was a link.

I ordered a vodka tonic. The bartender asked me if I wanted a slice of lime. “Yes, please!” Then he whispered to me: “If this drink is too strong, just let me know. I kind of got carried away with the vodka.”

“Oh, I am sure it’s just fine,” I said and took a sip. WOWSA!!!!

“Oh.”

“Is it too strong? If so, I’ll just throw it away and make you another.”

WHAT??!!??? Waste perfectly good alcohol?????

“Oh, no, that’s all right,” I reassured him. “I’ll just… uh… ‘nurse’ it.”

The woman behind me in line (whom I did not know at all) gave me a big smile of understanding that also said, “Could ya hurry it up? I need MY drink! Thank you very much.”

Armed with the most potent vodka tonic I have ever had in my entire life, I now felt empowered to… “mingle.”

Which, of course, meant “seek out people you know and talk to them.”

Which is what I did.

There weren’t too many people there I actually “knew,” though, so once I had taken care of all of them, I was now faced with talking to people whom I at least “recognized.”

I approached the woman who was in charge of the Alumni Council. She had graduated a few years ahead of me. I did not know her, but, of course, I knew OF her. In fact, I remembered her senior photo in the school yearbook and remembered thinking at the time as an awkward, pubescent teen: “Wow. She is so mature. So with it. So beautiful.”

I didn’t say that to this woman. It might have horrified her.

I might have said it to her if I had drunk my entire vodka tonic that was all vodka, but I was, like, ya know, “nursing” it.

Instead I told her, boldly: “My idea of mingling is talking to people I know.” She laughed lightly. “Well, my definition would not be much different,” she said.

And we then proceeded to have a semi-normal conversation about our kids.

OK.

Not so bad.

And that became my ice breaker for the evening: “Hi. My idea of mingling is talking to people I know. I don’t know you, but….”

Well, not entirely.

I did NOT walk up to anyone I absolutely, positively did not know and say that. I only said it to people I would normally… or semi-normally… mingle with.

I commented to the woman who had graduated a few years ahead of me that so many of those in attendance were very recent graduates. She agreed.

I said, “Yeah, I hardly know anyone now, but I can remember coming back for these alumni holiday functions right after I graduated and seeing all my classmates from school….”

She was supposed to nod and agree with me.

But she didn’t.

She looked over at me with surprise. “Oh, I NEVER came back for any of these things.”

“Oh?”

And then vaguely, in the back of my mind, I remembered her saying at an earlier Alumni Council meeting how her class had been full of “trouble makers.” Whatever that meant. Since she graduated in the mid to late seventies, I figured she meant they did a lot of drugs or something.

So, there it was. I had come back for the first few years after I graduated, reconnected with other high school friends home for the holidays, and had a good time. Then I had graduated from college, moved on, married, had a family, etc. and not come back for years and years and years. As had so many others. Now I happened to be living back in the town where I had grown up and was going to the function, not so much because I thought I was going to reconnect with former classmates but because I was on the Alumni Council and this was my… well, er, DUTY.

But, I was also observing a lot of newly recent grads reconnecting, much as I had some twenty five years before. So, I was thinking THAT was the norm.

Only my companion in mingling was telling me this was so NOT her personal experience.

Wow.

It made me think.

What IS reality?

What is the norm?

I see MY experience. I see others having similar experiences some twenty-five years later. THAT must be the norm. That must be reality.

But, clearly, this was not reality for the woman I was speaking with.

Hmmm…

It was sort of an eye-opener.

In an environment where very little eye-opening goes on.

Interesting…..

Maybe this mingling thing is more interesting than I thought.