How to REALLY Have Fun for Free
I don’t know whether it’s a desire born out of boredom or a sort of premeditated “social Tourette’s”, but I have this thing where in situations where am I anything but completely and utterly comfortable I think to myself “What would be the worst, weirdest, most offensive thing I could possibly do right now?” I have absolutely no intention of actually acting on said offensive/bizarre/antisocial behavior, but it’s like a little game I play with myself. As I said, it’s something I do only in situations where I’m not totally comfortable which generally means that it’s a situation where I’m meeting new people. Like, this sort of stuff doesn’t come into my mind when I’m hanging out with close friends or even people I’ve hung out with before. The desire to imagine horrific social situations usually strikes during interactions such as:
A job interview,
At someone’s formal dinner party where I don’t know anyone,
At a funeral
and the like. It’s like some little bad schoolboy part of my brain taps the rest of my brain and is like “Hey…wouldn’t it be crazy if during this job interview you pointed at the photograph of your possibly future boss hugging her small children on the beach and asked “who’s the fat kid?” Things like that. And while I know that this is probably not a great thing to have going on in one’s brain, it certainly keeps things both interesting and amusing. For example:
Several months ago I attended my boyfriend’s second cousin’s Quinceanera. I’m a white girl (if you hadn’t already guessed) and was absolutely the only white person at this nice event. Everyone was super welcoming and friendly and I met a lot of my boyfriend’s extended family who I had never met before. So there we are, enjoying the evening, and I think to myself “What would be the most awkward-making thing that I could do tonight in this situation?” And like magic, the answer came to me: Why, Disappear into the bathroom, and re-emerge 10 minutes later with super-dark lip liner around my mouth & gold door-knocker earrings, of course!
Months before that, I was in the women’s bathroom at my office and heard two coworkers whom I dislike rather strongly, talk about their weekend plans. I hate to be an asshole, but they sounded lame to me. One was going for “a really nice brunch” with some older lady who lives in her building and then had big plans to see some mom jazz crooner at Town Hall. The other said something about people from her “youth group” being in town and a possible karaoke meet up (utterly sober, knowing her.) I was in a stall at the time, they were out washing their hands by the sinks and had no idea I was listening to them. Immediately, I thought about how hilarious/awful/awesome/terrible it would be if i just yelled out “BOOOOOOORRinnng” from inside the stall, and then remained silent, refusing to come out.
See? So fun!
Why, only a couple of hours ago I watched a pregnant woman take a seat near me on the train. My social Tourrettes toyed with the idea of pointing at her and saying loudly “Oooooh!! You had sex!!”
I could go on and on and on. But I won’t, because by now I’m sure everyone, EVERYONE reading this, is seriously questioning both my maturity and my sanity. But I’m here to tell you that there’s nothing that can brighten up a potentially uninteresting situation quite like imagining what horrifically socially unacceptable ways you could conduct yourself in at any given moment. Plus? It’s totally free!
