Strangers make me feel like I'm on fire

New notification: Joe sent you a reel.

We had been speaking lately about meeting strangers. He had invited me previously to a singles mixer back when I was a freer bird and I told him what I tell you now: talking with strangers makes me feel like I’m on fire. A deep, burning desire to not be having this conversation anymore, knowing that the strangers I like are about 50%, and those that I wish to make friends out of down at about 20%. That said, I’ve always been good about it. I learned in my 20’s how to talk to people, and not stare like a damp fish. How to ask polite questions and listen to answers and make people laugh (though I suspect I interrupt too often). I assure you that these are learned, fire-fighting skills, with no amount of natural charm or grace to be heard of. Occasionally I’ve been known slip up, and I’m sure there are those wandered through the world who hold the opinion that RDW is blunt, rude, or downright unpleasant.

Further to the present then, and my partner has started going out to stranger dinners. A group of - in theory - six such unknowns meet, matched on some vague questions. One of the questions was whether the meeter would like to talk about politics. Here, Avery put their finger on it. Suppose I would like to talk politics, I should not like to talk politics with some right-wing bigot, for fear of disturbing the peace. Come to that, though I count myself as flag-waving a woke, queer leftie as you might find, I don’t know that I should like to meet another one exactly like me. It’s this lack of finer control that I find unsettling.

This is not to mention the fact that Avery had signed up to one of these services - were charged a packet - and had the whole thing called off because there weren’t enough people to fill a table. They had a similar issue with another service, where it was just four diners. Two of them turned out to be a couple, which left the two remaining strangers to endure a sort of double-date. I suppose if you’re matching people by personality then you’d think couples are more likely to get matched together, on the other hand it may be that if you only have four people in this age range, and two of them know one another, there’s not much to be done. It begs the question if it’s worth the money, being either under-managed or under-subscribed-to.

I always thought I wouldn’t mind speed-dating - as a matter of fact we just read about speed-friending, a platonic alternative. Given a couple of minutes to ask questions and have fun, I think I could put in a reasonable account of myself. And if I find the person isn’t the kind of horse I’d quite like to be stabled with, then it’s not a long time until we go our separate ways.

We took a risk on one of these stranger meet-ups together and had a good time at it. We found one that was a little more free-form that seeks to tackle Loneliness, and we could show up together and sit at a pub with the group. Again, at minimum all I’d need to sit through was one drink, I could pull on my ear or scratch my nose or another traditionally subtle mode and we’d take flight. We in fact stayed for a while, and even talked about hosting one such event ourselves.

We’re no stranger to these mental-health-themed events. We often roll our eyes and scoff playfully at signs for mens-only mental health groups. Unsupervised echo-chamber group therapy for men seems like another idea I would rather avoid. I go to a trained therapist, and I’m rather sensitive (read: prickly), and aware of the dangers of people just complaining all the time. It only takes one man in a group to say “I heard it’s all a women’s fault” and suddenly they’re in the streets hoisting flags on the lampposts. I’m not saying men shouldn’t get help - I think all men should unpick their socialised and institutionalised personal misogyny, racism, homophobia and bigotry of any kind - but I’m saying it’s better done at least with a guided hand, not just a room of other people who may or may not have unpicked the same things. Men need watching.

I opened the reel in the end. It was a new issue of one such service promising to set me up for coffee at 11am on a Sunday. Charged of course. Regardless of how abhorrent I find the idea of Sunday having an 11am, let alone me being out of the house at that time, they promise of course to match me with strangers based on my personality.

The fact of the matter - as I told Joe - is: that I’ve never met anybody else that has my personality. At least not anybody who would admit to it.