Friday, December 14, 2007

ladies and gentlemen! step right up to see the amazing sad-girl cliche!

I am the poster child for pathetic.

Tonight is my employee Christmas party, and I'm sitting at home eating frozen pizza and waiting for the fizz to go down on my diet root beer. When I told everyone I wasn't going because I just don't like the event, I was being honest. I really don't. Social soirees and ritzy receptions have become my bread and butter - literally. Just about every other weekend we have some fancy-pants office event, and I'm forced to put on my happy face and pretend that small talk comes naturally to me. I have to stand up straight, cross my legs, and censor my vocabularly. Our events are always very nice, but they're just not... me.

So why would I RSVP for one that I wasn't getting paid to attend? Exactly. Of course I don't want to be there, schmoozing with the people I see every day - half of whom I don't really even care for - working my ass off to ensure that I'm never without a conversation buddy when a slow song comes on. But sitting here munching on my pepperoni-and-tomato thin crust, listening to Sex and the City playing in the background, blogging by the light of my Christmas tree, it's hard not to feel just a wee bit lonely. Cinderella-like, even.

I did go to the party once. My first year as an employee. I brought my best friend as my date and arrived with a potpourri of partiers: an ex of one year, a new flame on the brink of becoming serious, and a male friend who doesn't get any more description than that because he reads this blog. What had all the potential in the world to become terrible, awful, and awkward... totally did. In about thirty minutes. I guess that experience just spoiled the whole thing for me. None of the people in my group that night would be at the party right now, but just the fact of being there would dredge it all up for me again. And - although right now I'm clearly the epitome of Lifetime for Women's target market - I still have a bit of dignity.

After all... I don't have a house full of cats, and my refrigerator is still proudly free of Cathy comics.

3 comments:

Luke said...

I didn't go to my office Christmas party, either. For two reasons. The more important one being wanting to be at home in case we had to zip out to the hospital and have a baby. The other being not wanting to participate in the "optional" karaoke.

But I've been to a few of the college's past holiday parties as a guest, and them is some bad karma waiting to happen.

KiKi said...

Amen! I've always gotten pressure to attend but i feel like you: why attend something when i'm not paid for it (and don't particularly enjoy the people I'd be spending time with). Hooray for frozen pizza and a dvd player ;)

Anonymous said...

aww, now i'm sad because Kiki was the nickname of Seth's mom in The OC.

PS - I'm straight

PPS - Becky, I *hate hate hated* the christmas parties. The year in question was twice as bad, for many reasons. All of which you know.

You and Brandy coulda dyked it out a bit though.