Last night I ventured out of the Love Shack into the frigid (40°, feels like 25°) windy night to go to a networking Meetup across town. I thought everyone would be hunkered down in their snuggies, braving the onslaught of what passes for winter weather in Portland, but no. Everyone was actually out driving around in their lumbering SUVs. I guess when you drive a Hummer, you aren't afraid of anything, certainly not a measly 50 mph wind gust or two. That's nothing when you weigh four tons. I just hoped no errant wind gust would pick up my tin can Ford Focus and toss me into said Hummer. Yikes.
So I was in, if not good company, certainly lots of company, driving at a snail's pace on I-84 toward Lloyd Center, trying to get to a funky Chinese restaurant by 6:00 p.m. When it's dark so early, all the red taillights flashing on and off remind me that it's my most-dreaded time of year: Christmas. That's a rant for another day.
I arrived at the restaurant at few minutes before the hour, and found no place to park in the tiny lot, so I drove along the street and around the first corner. Plenty of room under some wildly waving trees. Hmmm. I parked and hoped my car would be intact when I returned. Intact, meaning not buried under a toppled tree. I battled the wind to the restaurant, fought the glass door open, and whooshed inside with a pile of dead orange leaves. Festive.
I scooted past a gauntlet of empty red leather booths into the back room. I greeted the Meetup hostess and filled out a name tag, which I placed on my hat. After milling around aimlessly for a minute, hoping to connect with someone and failing, I took a place at a long plastic-topped table and plastered a fake smile on my face. More people arrived. The patient waitress was a welcome diversion. No one else seemed perturbed by the wind. I kept thinking of my dark dead appliances and hoped the power would be restored by the time I returned home.
There is a moment at every networking event when I feel like an alien from another solar system. It's usually when I'm seated and others are standing, talking over my head. I am forced to look up to see their faces, which hurts my neck and makes me feel like I'm invisible. I imagine that is how people in wheelchairs feel most of the time. It's painful on many levels. To push my chair back and stand up would be awkward, and knowing me, I'd probably lose my balance and fall either onto the table or onto my chair and thence onto the floor.
However, staying seated while trying to pretend I'm part of the conversation is also awkward. With my neck at an uncomfortable angle, I can sometimes see the standing participants cast quick glances in my direction. Mostly they see the top of my hat, where I've placed my name tag. Oh well, at least they will know my name if not my face.
In these situations, my solution is to turn my back on the standing networkers and address myself to my dinner as if to a long lost friend. Food doesn't argue. It's always been a reliable companion, at least until it's gone. But as long as there are a few crumbs of fried rice left, I can sink into the comfort of my own company and pretend I am too busy eating to be bothered with inane pursuits like communicating with other humans. Because, as I've mentioned before, I don't really like people, and I don't really care.
Well, that's not entirely true. I confess, I am fond of the woman who co-founded this Meetup group. I think she's swell. She was the only one, though, sadly. I recognized one other person. I'll call him Andy. At a previous Meetup, he described himself the “Ass Kicker” component of the “Dream Killer-Ass Kicker” coaching partnership. That is as frightening as it sounds.
Andy is a youngish man with a purposefully bald head and a plethora of facial jewelry. From our previous meetings, I had the impression that he was gay. Not that it matters. I don't always get it right (although I did accurately call it in The Crying Game, just saying, which surprised my then boyfriend, who was totally snookered). Last night I was the one who was snookered. Andy brought his female partner with him, a young Australian woman, introduced as Michelle, who was missing a tooth and wearing a mottled fur hat with ears and long tails hanging down her chest.
Of course, gender is a malleable thing. I've been mistaken for a young man before, when I was young and slim and everyone wore bell-bottom jeans, moccasins, gold wireframes, and long straight hair. (At the time I was mortified. Now I'm rather gleeful.) Because gender is amorphous, there is no telling the true nature of the relationship between Andy and Michelle. I don't spend much time thinking about it. But I did wonder about that weird fur hat, especially after she put her name tag on top of her head. I was perplexed, not because she appeared to be copying me, but because I thought, she just wrecked her fur hat by putting a name tag on it. Not my problem.
The evening's speaker was a young, overly enthusiastic pixie of a slip of a wisp of a girl, wearing a slim purple dress and demonstrating an annoying habit of saying, “If you're with me, say 'Hell, yes'!” After reading about Stanley Milgram's psychological study of teacher-student shenanigans, I never participate in obvious manipulations unless it's in support of someone I know and truly love, or unless I'm really drunk. I abstained from shouting “Hell, yes!” every three minutes and instead doodled in my notebook, drawing yawning faces, barely listening, and finally the sweet young thing wound down and squeaked out her call to action: “Only $39 for my four hour workshop, if you sign up tonight!” When the presentation was over, the real networking began.
But it turned out, it wasn't really networking. Four of us sat at one table. There was Andy, me, a massage therapist from Russia—I'll call her Tatiana—and an older gal named Rena, who described herself as sort of an astrologist, but with destiny cards, whatever those are. I didn't ask. We went around the table, sharing our notions of our ideal customer. It quickly became clear that Andy was in coaching mode, and Rena was worshiping at his altar, so to speak. Tatiana seemed content to support Rena, and I was content to carve heavier and heavier black lines into an image of a bleak stone face, which took up most of a page in my journal. I labeled the face Dream Killer, in honor of the absent partner. Andy didn't notice, being too caught up in playing the coach.
I spoke up every now and then, and I took my turn and exposed my quirks and foibles without much reluctance in a game attempt at authenticity. I really have nothing to lose. I'm pretty sure massage therapists and wannabe-astrologists will never see market research as a solution to any problem they may encounter in life. Why should I bother trying to convince them they have a problem that only research can solve? Andy, the ass-kicking coach, on the other hand, is a business man. He understands the relevance of and need for marketing research. But I wouldn't work with anyone who self-proclaims as an ass-kicker. Or a dream killer, for that matter.
Enough about networking! All of this just affirms what I've come to realize over the past year: I work best alone. As the wind moans under the eaves of the Love Shack, my cat snores in the chair next to me. What more does a person need to be happy, really? Electricity, a cozy cave, and a snoring cat. I've got it made.
