The Story, Part 2

It was drizzling out and cold, and the front room was full of kids and their parents, and Dorkface and my friend's wife were in the kitchen and in the corner of the kitchen was a table with food and chairs around it and I safely deposited myself over in the corner where I could seem social, but still have some space and distance from all the strangers.

I sat there and chatted with a great guy who, it turns out, is the husband of a gal I worked with years ago and I occasionally threw a line or two at Dorkface, who was helping my friend's wife with the cooking.

"Are you in charge of the oven there D?" I'd say, always the paragon of wit.

And he'd make some comment back, and I'd smile and go back to my beer and my new-found hilarious buddy.

It's not like back in the house party days of my mis-spent youth where everyone just mingled and jibed and you ended up in one space with the people you wanted to be with.

Here, people were watching their kids, or if you were Dorkface, helping with the cooking. Or if you were me, sitting at a table, chatting with some people.

The day eventually cleared up and we headed outside to eat and push children on swings.

Dorkface, who really did nothing wrong to be called "Dorkface", still didn't come and join the general flow of things, but continued to watch over the salmon.

There's a part of me that wonders if he was in a similar situation to me and didn't know very many people and so found something to do that he was comfortable with - helping cook the food with his co-worker.

I wandered by him a couple of times while he was tending the barbeque and made some stupid remark or other but I just couldn't make myself stop and engage him in a conversation.

I don't even know why. It should have been simple.

"So, you work with [friend's wife], eh?"

Easy, yeah?

Except here's what my brain said...

"Well, geez, Victoria, you don't even know what friend's wife does, so what are you going to do, start up a conversation with 'so, you work together, eh?' and then segue into 'what exactly is it that you guys do?' because that'll make you sound stupid. And you can't just go ask some other random, out of the blue question like 'so, where do you live' because that just sounds creepy and weird and he'll probably be like, 'dude, why is this chick hitting on me so obviously?' so it's better to just avoid eye contact when you head back inside."

So that's what I did. Just kind of say some odd thing here or there and smile, so I at least didn't look like the freak my brain was making me feel like.