When I moved into my lovely home two years ago, a woman a few years older than me tried to befriend me. We went to the cinema twice. On the second outing, I froze in the coffee shop, unable to think of a single thing to say. After about ten seconds of silence, she awkwardly asked me how I’d been. That was the end of it and I avoided her after that.
Until the other day that is. We bumped into each other and, for some reason, agreed to go to the cinema again.
I was feeling ok-ish because her husband had come out to chat, and then Sir Knockalot (Mack) from down the road appeared. Sir Knockalot launched into a one minute monologue about how I should be grateful he knocked on my door every day for ten days straight, because it meant he cared. No. What it meant was that he’s a lonely man who needs to talk at someone, and my poor communication skills means he can just waffle on to his heart’s content. People like that feel good when they cut you off and dominate the space don’t they?
So when my neighbour got into my car, I had an easy starter topic: her husband and Sir Knockalot. I thought I was doing okay.
The film itself was rubbish (The Conjuring: The Last Rights). On the way back to the car, I started saying how much I love films set in the 60s, 70s and 80s as I like spotting the old TVs and furniture – but she cut me off at “I love films set in the 60’s…” to say whatever she wanted instead.
Being cut off is one of my biggest fears. To me, it’s proof that I’m boring. It’s especially bad because I had told her before that I feel awful when people cut me off when I’m talking. So she made the effort previously, but obviously being in my humdrum company for more than an hour is too much to take.
It’s not my imagination as The Rapists (therapists) always seem to suggest.
She also has passenger road rage and was shouting at other drivers if they waited more than a second for the lights to turn green. The awful thing is, I started to drive faster so she wouldn’t think I was a bad driver. It was pretty relentless; A female driver was reversing into a space on the main road so I stopped to let her in, and the woman I was with was up in arms and actually said, “Oh it’s a bloody foreigner as well”. She was an attractive (not that it matters) Chinese lady who waved and thanked me profusely.
We both agreed the film wasn’t great and she said that at least it was an afternoon out. My inner response is that at least if I were at home, I’d be watching something good, reading something good or doing something I wanted to do and not having to monitor myself endlessly.
And so, that’s that. I won’t bother again. What pisses me off about myself though is that most other people would just brush this off as friends bantering and a one off like that wouldn’t be an issue. But for me, it is and I don’t think that’s a normal response or even an AvPD response.
She must think I’m bonkers. We go to the cinema and then she doesn’t see me for six months, only to bump into each other again, arrange another cinema trip and then the same thing happens.
Maybe I/we should speak up when these things happen? Make a joke out of it but also make a point? Because it can’t be good for us just keeping it all in and feeling like we aren’t being seen or being ourselves. But that’s the thing isn’t it. If we speak out and show a personality, we risk rejection which is a great fear of ours – but is that really any worse than how we are living now? Speaking up and out is a kind of exposure therapy. Exposing ourselves. I’m going to try it.
Still, I’ve sort of made an online friend, so we’ll see how that goes. (He lives only about 20 miles from me which is handy, but I’m already finding fault. Obviously.)