Socialisation

Social groups are interesting. In one of my favourite books, set at a college, the main character thinks at one point about how you become “friends with people you can't even stand half the time, and can't understand even when you do.” [This may not be the exact quote – I don't have the book in front of me.] I did not understand this in high school, or in college. “Why,” I thought, “would you be friends with people you don't like? Surely friendships are one form of relationship that depends on mutual liking? After all, you can't choose your family and you can't choose your co-workers, but you can choose your friends. Why would you choose to socialize with people you don't like?”

After the last few years, I understand it a little bit more. I still don't have people that I don't like that I would consider friends, but I do have social groups made up of people I don't like. This was especially true in Slovakia. Good Lord, anyone who knew me in 2005-06 knows that this is true. It is one of the reasons I left Tisovec. It is starting to become true again here, although I'm trying to avoid it or counteract it as much as I can.

I love my flatmates, I really do. I am so grateful that I got this group of girls to live with. I know how rare it is to actually get along with and socialize with your flatmates in randomly assigned university accommodation. Some of the most fun times I've had this year have been with my flatmates. My flatmates' social group is also made up of a majority of lovely people – when they're on their own. I do have a few problems with my flatmates' social group – which is, by extension, my social group. For one, it's flipping huge. A lot of them went to the Easter Formal ten days ago, and there were twenty people there. And that was not all of them. The other, more significant problem, is that when they drink, they are loud. And they drink a lot. And until last week, they would come to ours after the bars closed. I cannot think of a time that I was woken up or kept from falling asleep by loud drunk people in our hallway, bedrooms, or kitchen that it was not this particular group. They do always say that they are sorry – well, my flatmates always say that they are sorry – but I have reached the point where that's not good enough any more. “Sorry” involves not just acknowledgement that you've done something wrong, but an implicit agreement to at least TRY not to do it again. They usually realize that they've done something wrong, but the next time they go for a night out the same thing happens. The worst night yet was after the aforementioned Easter Formal, when I was kept awake until nearly four, couldn't hear the music two inches from my head because of the music coming from the absolute other end of the flat, people were literally throwing each other around the hallway, the “attic” was discovered, and three of my flatmates got noise warnings on their room. It was the worst night not just because of these things – although those would probably be enough – but just because it was the last straw for me when it comes to socializing with these people as a big group.

Tonight, those people are all out. It's a joint birthday party for one of my flatmates (the one I have a relatively low tolerance for) and one of the guys in the group, and it is also a celebration of the end of term/beginning of Easter holidays. I am not there. I am okay with this decision. There are lots of reasons why. I've had a very busy few weeks, and I need some time to myself. I'm not feeling completely well, and I have a job to do tomorrow (an actual paid one!). I don't enjoy nights where the goal of going out is to get trashed. But most of all, I don't deal well with huge groups, and I really don't like this particular huge group. Especially right now, when it hasn't been long enough for me to get over my complete and total anger and frustration at the sheer gall of how inconsiderate they are every single time they come over. I can hold grudges for a very long time, and I was very angry. I'm sure that I will get over it in another week or so and be able to enjoy their company again, but tonight is not that night.

There is a spider in my room, somewhere. It is a medium-sized black spider that scurries quite quickly. First it was on my duvet, then on my actual bed, and then I lost it.

Now, I am the first to admit that I don't deal well with things that have more limbs than I do (aka insects, arachnids, and things of that ilk. I do okay with 4 legs or 2 legs, for the most part. Just not more). Over the years, however, I have learned to control my sheer panic. I would really like to maneuver the spider onto a paper and release it out the window. Unfortunately it takes a bit of time for me to recover from the startle of seeing a scurrying spider, and by the time that my heart rate returns to normal and my brain resumes functioning, the spider has vanished.