Connecting (just not with the community)

Well after yet another low-turnout community event last night (serves us right on a Friday night in freezing cold weather, what were we thinking?), and enjoyable dinner conversation with the four of us crazy enough (or paid enough) to hold said event, I managed to maintain my average score of attending approximately one house party per year. True, I am fortunate enough to be invited to and attend several parties thrown by people I know, namely the crew and Wife and Sasha (blogger names... oooo....). While defined as "parties", these seem more like happy gatherings to me; the music isn't blastingly loud, the floor isn't sticky, STP is closer to 7 p.m. than 11 p.m., and more importantly I know most of the people there and can spend most of the night in interesting or fun conversation. So when I get up the nerve (or lose the nerves, depending on your perspective) to go to party at a house I don't know, invited by a person I've only met in one class, it is needless to say a rare and notable occasion.

When I arrived I was greeted in one of those awkward conversations where the person at the door doesn't know who you are but lets you in anyway, and walked into a room filled with people I didn't know. My greeter was kind enough to direct me to where I could throw my coat, and I quickly spotted my inviter, B, who was miraculously in conversation with another person from our class, H. A conversation I could legitimately jump into. Score.

The party was fun; a bustling but not over-packed house, thoughtful holiday decorations, food and eggnog beautifully displaced, and the variations of holiday music were kept to a talkable level (other than the occasions when someone would sit down at and on the piano and start belting out tunes). I was also fortunate to never be at a lost of conversation. B was kind enough to chat it up with H and me for a while, and I also managed to have interesting discussions with his roommate and H separately, despite never really talking to these people before tonight. (For those of you who are by now thinking that this is the most boring blog ever, please realize that for me to have good social interactions without knowing a person for several days or weeks beforehand is a huge step forward. The fact that I have to blog this instead of unwind the night to someone face-to-face, however, clearly shows that there is room for improvement on the social proficiency scale.)

It was an evening of amusing and lovely connections. B, I am quite certain, is a phantom member of the activism circles I always admired, tapped into, and moved within but never achieved full membership of during my undergraduate years. He knows so many of the same people, and does such similar work, that I'm frankly shocked that I had never met him before. Equally strange is the fact that H, who has been in my program since I started grad school, and is an international student, actually attended college in a tiny town not far from where I lived in IN, and was friends with one of my team members when I worked there. Very weird! We actually had a wonderful conversation about Islam, feminism, history, and racism, proving once again my ability to have sociologically relevant and intellectual conversation even at a party with sticky floors that runs well past 2 a.m.. At least I'm consistent, right?

Hopefully then next few parties/gatherings will be as successful. I would like to say that something would come of said interactions; I would see and talk with these people more, just hang out, and build relationships where I can call people just to see what's up. Maybe part of me has always seen stereotypical college parties as somewhat useless because it is difficult to get to know someone in a setting where you can barely hear yourself think. Then again, maybe I need more of a zen approach: did I have fun in the moment? Yes. Perhaps that should be enough.