THE FRIENDSHIP FILES

I Don’t Reach Out

It’s not because I don’t like you

I went to the cast party last night, after talking my husband into talking me into it. I was tired, but he wanted finger food and celebration.

It dawned on me I was missing something, which first appeared to be sleep. Upon deeper reflection, the vanished ingredient was more sublime and harder to reinstate: my former routine, the one that coddled me inside a cocoon of normalcy before I reached out, and got involved in community theatre.

I’ve been puttering around the house for three days in an attempt to rebalance. The hammer is my best friend, the drill my therapist. I replaced both air filters, made two trips to the hardware store, and fixed that sign that keeps falling off the laundry room wall.

My dad was a famous putterer but as I kid I had no idea what the hell he was doing. I think that was the point.

He’d disappear into the shed in his ubiquitous khaki trousers and plaid shirt in winter or fruit of the loom white undershirt in summer. Calling a repairman was a big event and a sign of defeat no one talked about.

It’s a privilege to putter. It feels good to go to bed at 9:30 and wake up at 6, never leaving the house after dark unless I have free tickets to a show, or better yet, never.

I was too tired at the cast party to be witty and charming, or have the presence of mind to:

— Remember anyone’s name

— Ask genuine questions

— Remember anyone’s answers

I was slogging along at the level of greeting, smiling, getting food, and sitting next to Rick, who’s an engineer and makes few social demands.

I have an undersized capacity for socializing. I like people, but more than one or two and they feel like locusts who could swarm at any moment.

I’ve been in denial about the locust problem most of my existence for a simple reason: outgoing people get ahead. Therefore, my child's brain did the math. I should be outgoing.

My father, the putterer who preferred the shed, encouraged me to be more outgoing.

I feel similarly indecisive about my gender and cling to my pre-adolescent genderlessness because being more like a boy was obviously better. Men get ahead. I should have a career. I should get ahead.

The vestiges of this philosophy are a love of pants and a distrust of beauty products.

I did not get ahead.

Trapped in the Body of a Human

Fortunately, the idea I was trapped in the body of a female never occurred to me. Chastity/Chaz Bono I was not.

“Mom, Dad — I feel I’d be better off as a boy. I like sports and math and matchbox cars.”

My parents would’ve exchanged a puzzled look and told me to do my homework and stop complaining.

When in fifth grade I was informed I should play the flute instead of the drums, I took the third way. I picked up the clarinet but as we know, half-measures avail us nothing.

At the party I was talking, in the sense that words left my mouth and formed sentences with periods and possibly commas, with Faith. I like Faith and could’ve made some plans with her. I also spoke with Prudence, but had nothing interesting to say, and quickly fled the scene.

It’s not because I don’t like them, I just hit a wall after a week of:

— 47 hours of rehearsing and performing, Sunday to Sunday.

— No swimming! The pool heater broke, gutting a routine I’d built up over the last month.

— The weather got unseasonably cold.

— My ear is plugged up and I’ve felt mildly dizzy.

It’s aggravating to be this way. I fold like an overcooked lasagne noodle under multiple adversities.

I was witnessing cast members with bigger parts, more work, and crippled spouses who needed regular physical therapy appointments — and not only were they socializing, but they seemed to be enjoying it!

I think it’s because they feed off socializing. I could tell a few spouses were ready to leave. I recognized the look in their eyes.

“I’m doing this because I’m married. Am I gonna get home in time for the game?”

The introverted spouses would occasionally break away from their other half to make a beeline for the boxed wine.

The Reach Out

There is an old program slogan:

“Never compare your insides with other people’s outsides.”

The reason for this saying is we do this all the time, like judging a book by its cover or crying over spilt milk.

I can accept, somehow and with Buddhist-like concentration, the reality that multiple adverse events do not make me want to get out and talk to people.

Getting out and talking to people IS an adverse event.

The idea of reaching out under these circumstances seems about as sensible as drinking a glass of water while drowning.

I picture a cop dialing up another cop in the adjacent jurisdiction so they can solve a crime together. The cops have heroic toughness, and they don’t want to reach out, but they are in a movie so they have to.

Time for some therapeutic crafting. I’d better get that paint-by-numbers portrait of a rainbow-colored zebra out and get cracking.

After a few days of indoor puttering and art therapy, I’m ready. I’ll step outside with a dish of yams for Thanksgiving with People.

The weather is warming up. I’m less dizzy. Today, I’m going to swim in the cold pool — even if it’s just five laps.

Solving Cold Cases

If I were investigating a murder, I’d hem and haw and pick up the phone.

“George, this is Butch Kowalski down at precinct 184, how are ya?”

“Listen, I got this murder in your jurisdiction so I’m reaching out.”

I don’t want anyone to have to die, but I doubt this phone call will ever happen.

“Tina, this is Jean from the play, how are you?”

“Listen, I got some friends coming over to play board games and wanted to reach out.”

Maybe a text, after Thanksgiving, following five more days of puttering.

A neighbor told me the other day at our block party, held under perfect Indian summer afternoon skies, that when she first moved here she got involved in way too many activities. She also self-identified as an introvert.

Bingo. I took this to heart.

I immediately abandoned her and haven’t spoken to her since, or any other neighbors for that matter. They can reach out.

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Jean Campbell recently started her first Substack newsletter to laser focus on getting her book, City of Lies: A Street Hustler’s Omaha Journey published.