Party-phobic and Proud

Been planning my fortieth birthday party. Felt I should have a party. Don't know why. Temporary insanity with long reaching effects. I have a total party phobia. I do not recall having ever actually given a party. Once. Once, when I was housesitting at this great place, I invited a bunch of people for a party because the space was so perfect for it. It worked, too. All I had to do was sit back and let them go 'ooh what a beautiful home!' and say, 'yeah, have a glass of wine or something and look around,' and it was a done deal. But now I live in a little apartment by the highway with stained carpet and no view and I can not imagine inviting people to come and enjoy this cramped space with me. "Ah, listen to the roar of the sonically enhanced motorcycle engines as they pop your eardrums repeatedly!" I would say. Or, "If you close your eyes, you can imagine the traffic is the sound of the surf!" But I have a friend with a lovely house who was gracious enough to offer to throw me a party at her house. For some reason, I decided this would be good.

I felt that 40 should be marked with some acknowledgement that I do have friends and they will come to see me. (I DO have friends, and they WILL come to see me. I DO have friends, and they WILL come to see me . . .). So I did what I have never done before, and I went through my cell phone directory and called pretty much everyone I know who hasn't ostracised me for some social gaffe or other and invited them all. Interesting thing to do. People were actually flattered. One lady said, "Wow. You're inviting me? Somebody cares!" Now, if you are a person who regularly has parties, then you know this feeling. It probably happens all the time to you. Me, this is something novel. Even when I was a child, I had a party phobia. I remember being a kid and my mom throwing me a birthday party. "Who should we invite?" she said. I broke down into tears. The kids from school mixing with friends of the family? The kids from the neighborhood mixing with the kids from "gifted" class? My God, what a nightmare! I guess if I'd followed the Successful Kid Handbook I would have gone through with it and learned that when you have a pool, you can count on everyone uniting around that common pleasure. Which I would then extrapolate into adult parties, but replacing "pool" with "booze." Except that at my age, a bunch of the people are already recovering alcoholics, so then there is the problem of should there be booze or no booze. Should it be placed tastefully out of sight? A new party nightmare that comes with age!

But I didn't learn a damn thing as a kid, seemingly, and here I still am, forty years old and chronically party-phobic. But this time I'm going through with it . . . I have my very social friend with a good house as coach, though, so hopefully I come out the other side of 40 with this one mid-life crisis narrowly averted. Stay tuned for searingly honest descriptions of my upcoming potential party idiocies.