Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Social graces

I'm just going to say it - It's not ok to be gregarious just anywhere you know! 

And yes, I know you like being gregarious. It's part of who you are. It's the real you, at least in those moments, and no, I'm not suggesting for a minute that you're ONLY gregarious, but it is part of you. A wonderful part of you. 

At dinner parties, go for it. That's a perfect place to be gregarious. It's almost a requirement at dinner parties. If there wasn't any gregarity in the room the party would descend in to a pantomime of cold silence, before giving way to inhospitably or possibly even mild passive aggressiveness. No one wants that, believe me. 

I was once at a dinner party when the HOST was passive aggressive. Yes the host. It turned the serving of the mash potatoes from what would normally be one of the highlight of the whole food serving portion of the evening from being an haphazardness spooning of inconsistently random glory into something perhaps a tad awkward. And I'll just be harsh for a second, but I saw a guest later on that evening miming out a representation of the slight aggression they had witnessed in the spoonful lumped onto her husbands plate - in a mocking way! 

So, I'm definitely not saying don't be gregarious at dinner parties. Please BE gregarious at those. I'd hate to see you mocked with mocking mime one day. 

Not that you hold a monopoly on being gregarious either. If we're at a dinner party together we should BOTH be gregarious. That's only logical, polite and fair. And gregarity should always be distributed with the entire parties happiness taken into account. 

I'll be honest with you, you know the Georgians? You know how I say 'let's not invite them places, they aren't very gregarious' - well, yeah, ok I'll just say it - Candice is very gregarious, it's only Jeremy who isn't. And yet I've been giving them the same label. That's life motherfuckers. You form a couple then you get lumped in with the social graces, skills and failings of the whole package. 

I'd hate for either of us to suffer from wagging ears, and blushing souls caused by the other one of us lacking, or indeed exceeding our natural quota of any number of potential uses of social etiquette in regards to a whole manner of charms, gregarity being just one of them. 

Look, fuck, I said I'd just say it, and I will - your gregariousness sometimes comes off as mere chummy familiarity! 

Oh my god, it feels good to get that out. What a relief. Like a lifted weight. My god, I'd let that build up inside me for months, and now that it's out we can deal with it, accept it and move on. 

So that was it. Thanks. 

Oh and everyone knows you blew Donald in the laundry, we were watching on the security monitors, but no one cared, we're just not judgmental people. 

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