Preemptive Retaliation

Back to scheduled programming. That last entry was an anomaly, of course. This blog is the forward facing one, the one that is part of my Official Website, where I Sell Who I Am As A Person And That Person Is A Cool Person. This is where people come to read my thoughts and see my novels and dog me about when the next one will be coming out. This is where I will interact with my fans. My adoring fans.

Once when out drinking with friends, I described how throwing parties can be socially stressful. Through my life I’ve tended to be The Guy With A Flat (wow I’m really leaning into the whole capital letter title thing aren’t I?) – as in, I’m the guy who has a place to hang out in, to party in. At seventeen years old my friends were all learning all how to drive, but I never had to. They all drove to me. I leaned into this for ten years of gatherings and parties, hosting or providing a venue for others to host. I loved it. I loved being in party flats, of people coming to mine and expecting a good time. What I didn’t enjoy, what I tried to avoid, was the mixing of social circles.

There were a number of these circles. I had my East Kilbride circle, gathered from high school. I had my university circle, and then the Writer’s Society circle, which were separate but had considerable overlap. My geek friends, my art friends, my friends of friends, intersecting each other in a vast venn diagram. My drug friends were a circle of their own, the overlap so slight it was as though the sides only barely touched. I stood at the centre of each of these circles – or at least a part of me did. I was never the same person with all of them, because why would I be? My childhood friends aren’t interested in my creative side. My writer friends weren’t interested in my insecurities. My drug friends would worry my anxiety would bring them down. So each circle had a part of me. Or, more like – they all had me, the same person, but in a different light.

For most parties I could maintain this. Different events for different circles. There were overlaps, but that was fine. But occasionally there was cause to bring these different groups together – Halloween, New Years, my inevitable birthday party. On these events the circles would come together, forming one giant circle with me in the middle. And I found it stressful. People interacting, talking, sharing stories about the other me’s, wondering to themselves how I even knew them and what did they have in common with me. What if one group where I am raunchy and uninhibited meets up with the group where I’m reserved and considerate? How will the ones who think I’m an awkward mess react when they find out I’m king of another group? When they tell stories of me being a notorious flirt to being off my face on pills? I couldn’t handle it. Different circles have different Joe’s, and that’s that.

This blog is the forward facing one. This is part of my Official Website. This is where I talk about Writerly things. I have other outlets for other things. I have a written journal that’s been going for the past few years where I pour my sadness, my drunken malaise. I have notebooks of story ideas that address my insecurities, my strange thoughts, the things I consider normal but are only normal to me. These things shouldn’t overlap. Different Joe’s for different journals. And that’s that.

To bookend my story though – when I was out with friends I described how throwing parties can be socially stressful. I explained the whole social circle thing, and how I act differently around different people, and they laughed and called me a sociopath. I don’t think that’s true, but I still think about it.