Learning many lessons

The party didn’t go well. That was the understatement of the year! It was definitely one of the worst experiences of my life. Still, I knew that by simply forgetting about it and moving on, I would be missing out. As much as I hated thinking about how poorly I handled things, I realized that the lessons to be learned were worth their weight in gold.

So, what exactly did I expect to gain from this? Well, as painful as it was, I hoped to at least analyze things in a logical manner and pinpoint the mistakes I made. I was determined to review the entire evening (as painful as that was) because I wouldn’t get an opportunity like this again. After all, I didn’t go through that torture for nothing.

Ok, so the first observation I made was that I really made a mistake attending in the first place. I was in way over my head. I don’t know what made me think that anything good would come of it. I suppose, in a way, I was a little over-confident at the progress I was making around town.

The episode with Ron in the car wasn’t something that I could have foreseen; however, it did set the tone for the rest of the evening. I wished I could have been a little more “on-the-ball”, so to speak, and at least challenge the prick instead of saying nothing and letting him get the better of me. I arrived at the party depressed and anxious because of this.

Another major problem was that I had nothing in the “toolbox” to deal with such a high-level encounter. By this, I mean I had no coping skills that could make up for my poor self-esteem. Ideally, I would have preferred a naturally confident personality, but that was a long way off. Coping skills would fill the gap until (if) I ever re-programmed my auto-thoughts and responses.

Coping skills – that manual system for dealing with difficult situations – were not fully in place yet. Sure, I developed some basic skills for mingling with the locals, but something of the magnitude of that last party would require an entirely different approach.

Lastly, I concluded that I lacked the very basic skills of human interaction. I had no social graces, conversation skills, or social awareness. I could work on these, however, and what I didn’t know, I could learn.

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