Treading water.

Last night, I reluctantly dolled up and went attended a swanky wine and cheese gathering at my friend's house. I figured that I would know most of the people there, and figured that I wouldn't have much to say to them, and wanted to avoid the acquaintance that I [thought I] hit it off with a while back but who never called. The party was very nice, and after uncomfortably dodging said former acquaintance for a while, we ended up chatting nicely throughout the evening. Met a few other very nice people, drank wonderful wine, munched on very fancy appetizers, and was doing ok. The calm evening came to a screeching halt when I inadvertently outed a friend of mine to his coworker. Completely, unintentionally kicked his ass out of the closet. Having nothing further to say to anyone present, and figuring I had done enough damage for the night, I left. I was the first person to leave.

I was cornered several times by a friend asking what was wrong, was I tired? Bored from enduring an MPRE review all day? None of the above. Just bored and wholly uninspired. I'm not growing as a person, I'm not being challenged, I'm not really meeting too many new people, or having too many new experiences. That's not necessarily a reason to be frustrated. What frustrates me is that I have things I want to accomplish in the course of my life, and nothing I am doing right now is bringing me any closer to accomplishing them. I want to be a public defender, I want to work with youth, I want to have an apartment with my own furniture in it, I want to see places I've never seen before, I want to meet new people interested in similar things, I want to meet guy who is really into me, who knows my favorite foods/shows/books/stories and can use that knowledge appropriately, who tells me I'm beautiful and means it, and who is doing something that inspires him. I wake up every morning, go to work, work alone all day, go home, see the same one or two friends every single day, then go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. So, for parties like last night, I do a cost-benefit analysis. Is it worth turning off "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion" to get out of my sweatpants, do my hair, apply accessories, coordinate an outfit, and put on a lot of mascara and makeup, to later have to come home and remove all of these items? Is the social event worth the energy? And last night, I was breaking even. Throughout the night I was having an enjoyable enough time that I didn't feel compelled to leave, having applied so much makeup, but didn't feel particularly compelled to stay, either. After my social faux pas, that tipped the scales in favor of a hasty departure.

My response to this has been to just stop trying, which is acceptable to me at this point. I've read several books in the past few weeks and have completely fallen in love with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'll always have the sweet reliability of paperback fiction.