So I am leaving my house the other day, and my housemate asks where I am going. I told her that I was going to the Lucky Lab to play games. "Cool," she said, "who are you going with?"
"I am going with my Depressed and Anxious people meet-up group!" I told her brightly. "Want to come?"
She burst out into laughter. "Sounds like a good time," she said, "but I'll pass."
Yes, there is a depressed and anxious person meet-up here in Portland. I have decided to stop fighting my depression and try to hang out with people that are more sympathetic to it. This was after many rather disappointing meetup experiments with the local social crowd. You see, whenever I go to one of these things, I am sandwiched between two people that have awesome chemistry and spend the evening flirting over me. It's quite annoying.
The worst was a meet-up at some pub. It started out great. At the table was me, a couple, and another really nice mousy girl. The female half of the couple was a nurse and we talked about that for quite a while. I had a few beers and got pretty tipsy and was having a good time until this blonde little prima donna bimbo showed up.
You see, the problem with me, is that I tend to fade in the light. When I am in a group with those self-absorbed people that seem to want to talk about nothing but themselves, I find it pretty hard to engage. Part of me is bored still as this stupid blonde idiot described the last meetup that she went into in terms of how many people hit on her, and the other part is kind of resentful that she took what was a perfectly enjoyable and balanced conversation and tipped it towards her annoyingly scantily clad breasts.
At one point, Bimbo was gracious enough to shut up long enough for us to talk about the different meetups we went to. Couple went to a couple's meetup. Mousy had gone to some art meetup. And I told the group about my Scientology Adventure. This led to a conversation about Scientology which went on for a little bit. This was due to the fact that Bimbo, upset that the focus was no longer on her, leaned back to tell the other table all about herself. At this point a young man who looked like he got lost on the way to a frat party joined our table and announced that he too was part of the group.
At this point we had moved on to the subjects of age. When it came to me, I said that I was 35 and Frat turned to me and said in a rather loud voice "You're 45?" I like to think that his shock due to the fact that I do not look like I am 45, however, when I corrected him, he just nodded approvingly, making me think rather that he was more shocked of my being at a meetup that was geared towards young adults aged 20-39.
"She's also a Scientologist!", Bimbo said, managing to rejoin the conversation right when Frat sat down, surprisingly. I protested this while Frat oogled Bimbo they began their sickening flirtation, which basically consisted of her describing what a ball-breaking bitch she tended to be, and him grinning like a moron and pretending to be shocked at the fact that she would send her one-night-stands out for coffee the next morning. (She never did mention if they bothered to come back.)
From then on out, whenever a new person came to the table, Frat and Bimbo thought that it was hilarious to go around the table and introduce everyone with a one word sentence, ending on "And this is Kim, she's a 45 year-old Scientologist." What was worse was that the newcomer would generally come back with a shocked "You're a scientologist?" rather then "You're 45?"
The first time that this was done, I smiled obligingly, the second time I slightly curtly corrected Frat, and the third time I finally told him that he needed to stop introducing me in such a way. He and Bimbo found this entire thing very amusing and stopped introducing me altogether, making me wonder if this was due to the fact that they didn't have another adjective to use in their little two-man introductions comedy routine.
I think that Mousy was getting sick of this as well (Couple had long ago stopped talking to the table entirely and was chatting among themselves) and she excused her self and took off. A few polite minutes later, I stood up and went to get my bill. It was a bit of a wait, so I went back to reclaim my seat just to see that it was taken by a twenty-something in a baseball cap that was hoping for a shot at Bimbo himself.
Needless to say, that was the last meetup I attended. They say that depressed people should make an effort to get out and meet new people. I say that those people have never meet to this particular Portland meetup.
Next week: Hello depressed and anxious folks…
