Small Talk, Social Gatherings, Expensive Cosmetics & a Place Like Home

I found myself at yet another Military Wife Organised...Thingy at the weekend. 

We've all been to these kind of things before, the Vie parties, the Ann Summer parties, the Scented Candles parties, the Organic Cosmetics parties etc...years ago they used to be Tupa Ware parties, or some such excuse for women to get together and have a few drinks.  I guess it was our mothers' chance to have us kids tucked up in bed and to be able to enjoy a little 'me time' including adult conversation without having to pay for a babysitter or taxis.

Any way, the evening was fine.  The other ladies were fine. The products being sold were interesting (and expensive as organic essential oil based cosmetics are) and I bought a little something to the tune of nearly £20 - am actually a little excited about trying it out!

But, and perhaps its odd but I spent the whole time I was there wishing I was somewhere else i.e. home.  I made polite small talk with the other women, listened attentively and responded in the right manner.  I even answered their questions and asked a few of my own....and still I wanted to be anywhere other than there.

I've never enjoyed making or being on the end of small talk.  I've never liked attending social gatherings in which I'm in a room full of unknown people, unless its a talk or lecture or something related to a topic I'm interested in. 

I find these gatherings so... false for want of a better word and I often feel uncomfortable and false myself.  I feel like I am pretending to be someone else, pretending to be interested in other people and their lives rather than a person making conversation out of genuine interest.

That isn't to say that I'm not a social person, just a bit of a recluse who likes her own company.  Now I sound like a egotist who thinks that everyone else on this earth is uninteresting compared to herself...and that isn't the case.

I'm the type of person who singles out the shyest person in the room and sits next to them to make conversation. 
I'm the type of person who enters a room full people - like the other day when I attended the GTP meeting - takes a seat on a table by myself and smiles at everyone as they come in the room. 
I'm the kind of person who will give up my seat on a bus or a train for someone else. 
I'm the kind of person who will help another passenger with their luggage off a bus or coach or train or something. 
I'm the kind of person who will pick up a child who has fallen over and reassure them before I take them to find their mummy. 
I'm the kind of person who thinks twice before saying the angry hurtful words that are in my head and seconds from my lips. 
I'm the kind of person who gives everyone the benefit of the doubt and a chance.

Its true that I don't have many friends, in terms of close friends I really only have T and K, but I am rich in the quality of these friendships. 

And I am lucky enough to believe that if I have them and L?...Then I have everything I'll ever need.