FOMO No Mo'
It is 8:45 PM on the Saturday night before Halloween. Many of you are probably at a party or on your way to a party. I am home, listening to “Thriller”, wearing a warm cardigan and jogging pants and my Animal (the Muppets character) socks. I could be somewhere, but I think I’m better off not being somewhere. Other than in my apartment, I mean.
I’ve never been a big party person. And there is a difference between parties and gatherings. Gatherings-a small group of people hanging out- appeal greatly to me. I am a big believer in community, and I enjoy the give-and-take of 5 or 6 or 10 people sitting around a room, talking, sharing thoughts and ideas. Multiply that and I become…anxious? Uncomfortable? There are so many people and so many conversations taking place and I feel like I have to be extra extroverted and it’s exhausting. As much as I get energy from being around people, energy gets sapped from me when I have to be around a lot of people at once.
There are difference between Mike Heyliger and Mike Joseph. To oversimplify it, the former is an introvert, the latter is an extrovert. Usually, the two meet somewhere in the middle—a combination of what I once was and what I’m still becoming. At parties, I often feel like I have to turn “Mike Joseph” up to 11. It’s the “host” part of me, even if I’m not actually hosting. I want to be engaging and friendly and “hey, how are you?” and usually I have a good time, but I leave these functions feeling slightly sad that I didn’t really get the chance to bond with anyone. It can be fun, but it is also almost always tiring and there’s a tinge of disappointment when I look back on them.
The push and pull between these two sides of me has been a thing for maybe a half decade or so. Is it weird that as I get to better know myself I often find myself dueling with two similar-but-sometimes-not sides of my personality?
I’m appreciative of the fact that I could be places that I’m not right now. And maybe if this wasn’t such an emotionally exhausting week (more on that some other time) and I wasn’t traveling in a few days and my stomach wasn’t burbling for most of the day (consequence of my diabetes meds on occasion—pretty horrible gas/bubbleguts), I’d be at those places (last night was another story—I got invited to stuff that I may have stopped by briefly but I’d committed to podcast recording and truthfully—I feel better having made that commitment). But I’m not. And although there’s a part of me that’s like “MIKE YOU SHOULD BE OUT ENJOYING YOURSELF”, I think I’m OK in, also enjoying myself.