off to the races

so i've begun the quest to be more social. i have to say, so far so good. i used to be very social. i had a large group of friends that either hung out at my apartment or went out for dinner, drinks, movies, etc. i was rarely home and when i was i was either sleeping or other people were there to hang out. since buying my house 4 years ago, i've slowly become more and more hermit-like until i've found in the last 6 months to a year i've been completely closed off from everyone. when i go out, it is by myself. on the very rare occasions i was with other people, i looked for excuses to get out of there.

i've always enjoyed my own company. i'm pretty introverted so being with groups of people tires me out pretty quickly, but as i've gotten older, i've let introverted become an excuse to never be around people. which makes me sad as i like people. thus the quest to be more social. i've wanted to say yes to more of the opportunities that come my way so i've started saying yes.

last weekend, i went with a group of people i didn't really know on a shopping weekend to the detroit area all because the one person in the group i did know asked me to go. a group of people i don't know with a plan to do nothing but shop for two days is typically a good enough reason for me to say no. add on top of that the fact that is was labelled a 'girls weekend' and i would normally run for the hills. i've never been good at bonding with groups of girls. but i didn't run. i embraced my desire to get out more and i went. a good time was had and i even hope to hang out with some of them again.

later in the week, i found myself in yet another situation that i would normally run as quickly as i can from...an in home jewelry party. you know...like tupperware parties except with jewelry. a good time was had, some jewelry bought and when asked 'would you like to host a party?' with the new saying yes thing, i said....'yes, i'd love to host a party.' so while everyone else is celebrating martin luther king jr.'s birth, i'll be stressing out about a clean house and whether or not anyone will show up for my little shindig.

today, i planned to spend the day catching up on my movies. i had 5 movies picked for the marathon...toy story 3, easy a, the social network, inception and micmacs. got through the first 4 movies and received a text message from a friend letting me know that another friend of ours had gotten engaged and there was an impromptu engagement party i really needed to get to. so in the spirit of 'yes' i gave up the 5 movie of the night (one i was really looking forward to) and went to celebrate the engagement of two friends i hadn't seen in awhile. several promises to hang out more later, i've finally gotten home and i'm feeling good about my first full week of being more social.

we'll see how next week goes.