Socialising

Today

I've just returned from my annual weekend with the Laetare Singers at Halsway Manor in the Quantocks. There are quite a lot of people there - about sixty - so they take some getting to know. I've developed a fairly jolly persona for this sort of occasion, but that doesn't always help me in understanding people.

Nor, if I'm honest, in their getting to know me.

In My Day

People who know me now are very surprised when I say that I have in the past been rather shy. My upbringing, with its emphasis on family, meant that I was unskilled in dealing with random social contacts.

While I enjoyed parties, I also found it very hard to be relaxed, to be "me" and to find out anything about other people. Parties were often it seemed, when looking back, ordeals to be endured where everyone but me knew the rules.

Sometime in my mid-twenties I decided this had to stop. People, after all, might be interesting, if only I had the courage to approach them. We went to a fair number of parties and I simply starting talking to folk; asking them what they did, how they knew the host etc etc. Somewhat to my surprise, I found that people responded and I began to enjoy these transitory social contacts.

A family joke soon arose; that at any given party I could be found with a group of people around me, hanging on my every word. I don't know how true that is, but given my earlier awkwardness, I guess it's more of a compliment than otherwise.

At family events, such as weddings, I now deliberately approach members of the new family to find out more. This has resulted in new friendships, new insights and a greater sense of belonging.

Talking to a friend this weekend about someone with whom I had only recently learnt to connect, I said "It took me a while to get their measure..." After a pause, "and, I suppose for them to get mine".

Quite.