in which I am thoroughly incensed

On Saturday night I went to G's "stagette" party. Yuk. I don't know G very well. As she is a newcomer to Canada I have been trying to make her feel welcomed and at home. However, the more I get to know her, the less I want to know her. I am making a solemn promise to myself to never EVER attend one of these types of gatherings EVER again unless I do so because I WANT to and only because I ADORE the person being honoured.

Sitting around a restaurant with fourteen other women I don't know and trying to make polite smalltalk until the bill comes (and fuming silently while they divide it fourteen ways regardless of the fact that Hilda and Tessie at the end of the table each drank two bottles of wine and ordered steak and lobster while Minnie and Teenie had salads and water) makes me want to die. No, kill. I hate this kind of event. I felt terrible for K - the only person in attendance I both know and like, who was so painfully careful to order a small meal, avoid the wine, and make sure her fifteen dollars would cover her night, only to have one of the Bossy Ladies announce, brandishing her cellphone-slash-calculator, that everyone was to cough up thirty. I'm not really the type of person to keep quiet in a situation like that, but with G sitting right beside me, I opted for the path of least resistance. It's not the money that rankles. It's the forced gaiety and the obnoxious disregard for other people's situations.

I received a chipper thank you note (via email) from G the following day, along with a request to exchange emails with all the other ladies we'd dined with so we could do it again (hah) and a link to G's online blog on which she had posted photos of all of us without asking permission. Infuriating.

I am no longer going to be "nice" and attend social functions I want no part of. I'm drawing the line right here.



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