Somewhat fun, somewhat awkward weekend

[My poor friend me]

So over this past weekend, I attended an out-of-town party weekend with a group of about 20 people. Some were social acquaintances I'd met a few times before, others I just met for the first time on this trip (although they all knew the people I knew, so we were all one big group). None of them were were really what I'd call "close friends," but I haven't really made any of those since I moved away from my hometown almost three years ago, so that's to be expected.

Anyway, we rented a vacation villa thing as a group and packed into it like sardines. This turned out to be a problem, because it was absolutely impossible for me to get any time to myself, which started to drive me nuts pretty quickly. This was all happening in a small town that was holding a beer festival/winter carnival, which pretty much took over the whole town on the weekend in question, so I couldn't really get any alone time by leaving the villa. Every single place I had access to for the entire weekend was filled with loud, happy, celebrating people.

So when I got into a "I need to be alone" state, I'd get quiet. Which totally doesn't work, because when loud, happy drunk people notice someone being quiet, they make a concerted effort to pull that person into the festivities. Which of course was the last thing in the world I wanted.

And at one point while I was feeling social and celebratory, I got caught up in the festive spirit and did drugs for the first time in years, which ended up triggering a massive anxiety attack. It was ultimately harmless and went away on its own, but here's the thing about that: One of my new friends is a medic, and when she became very interested in my heart rate and blood pressure, it freaked me out even more. (And she refused to let me take anti-anxiety meds -- completely understandable given the cocktail of chemicals already in my bloodstream -- but it didn't help either).

There was also a very awkward moment when a hot girl (who was in my group, but I hadn't met before) got annoyed with me for failing to pretend to be her boyfriend. I didn't know I was supposed to. Apparently there was a guy hitting on her, so she stood there clinging to my arm so he would go away. I figured she was being flirtatious, and didn't know there was any more to it than that. Then I said something semi-friendly to the creepy dude (he said something about liking my glasses, and I said, "Thanks, want to try them on?") Then she said something about me blowing her cover. It wasn't really a big deal, but it left me feeling weird and awkward.

All in all, the weekend left me with no desire to attend another out-of-town party weekend any time soon.

[manuel_moe_g]

My social anxiety would make it impossible to me to do what you did!

You gave it a try, it wore you out a bit, now you can take a break for a little bit. You are not a mind-reader, so you handled yourself as well as anyone could.