Introvert or Party Pooper?

I'm an introvert. It may not be obvious to those who know me, but it's true.

Never is this more obvious to me than when I'm at a party. Like right now. I am at a party with about a hundred people, and I'm sitting on the porch, by myself, blogging from my phone. I mean I hate it. I'm not much of a drinker, and I'm not adept at striking up conversation with strangers. Or maybe I just don't want to talk to people I don't know. That could be it. 

It's weird. Put me in a room in a professional environment, and I'll talk about work and education until I'm blue in the face or you're bored out of your mind. I can do that. Put me on a stage, to give a speech in front of hundreds or even thousands of people. I can do that. I just don't want to make small talk. I don't want to socialize. I'd rather be reading or writing or listening to my own choice of music.

I used to not be able to admit this. In fact, I think I even thought of myself as lame for not liking parties. I didn't go to many in high school. It wasn't that I didn't have friends. I had a tight knit group of friends, I was a cheerleader (Ugh, I can't believe I'm sharing that publicly), and my last two years of high school I had a boyfriend. But parties were never my thing. I did have a brief period of time in college during which I attended lots of frat parties and other non-Greek social gatherings. I think it's because in college there was no happy medium. It was kind of like go to a party or sit alone in my dorm room. My friends would never have allowed the latter... at least not in my first two years.

Eventually though, maybe because I was in a serious relationship with my soon to be husband, it got old. I was much more content to hang out with my best college buddy and play Scrabble and watch Donna Reed repeats. It's ok, you can think we're lame. I wouldn't trade those nights for the world. Out of them came a friendship that remains as important to me today as it was then.

Now, there's nothing I enjoy more on a Friday or Saturday night, or even a holiday, than a nice meal at home or in a quiet restaurant, with my family or a couple of close friends. So on Independence Day, while the hundred or so gather outside to set the sky on fire with fireworks, I'll stay here on the porch, catch whatever I can, and wait to be alone again with a book or my journal.