There's a time for the socialite in all of us...

What is it about standing around at a party that can make me feel utterly self conscious and so entirely at ease at the same time?

A company that we do business with had an "office warming" party today. It was a cute little gathering. They're a fairly small company, but they have relations with some rather large companies. It was more than I expected actually... There was a well stocked bar, a good cheese/bread/crackers/dip table, and a few servers walking around with fresh hors d'oeuvres.

The thing that gets me is that I start off worried about everything. Did we show up at a bad time (too early/too late/in the middle of something)? Am I under/overdressed? What is appropriate to talk about with people? Then I start getting comfortable. I start making every day happenings into great stories to tell people. Something as small as a remark someone made to me at a meeting yesterday turns into something interesting to talk to other people about. I start feeling like we should get to know people that we'll probably never see again. And then I start wondering what it's all for... Is this really doing me any good? If I don't really know these people, and I'm never going to have any relationship with them, why should I try to have a conversation with them. And the question I ask myself most honestly is, am I doing all of this just so that I won't be standing over there by myself? The answer is undoubtedly yes.

Even if I end up having fun, I still wonder what it's all for. Especially when I walk away from it with the taste of alcohol in my mouth. I don't like it as much as I used to, and I always hate the aftertaste. But isn't that how so many things in life are -- no matter how much you don't want to do something, you're drawn to it time and time again, always knowing that you'll hate the aftertaste.