Antisocial

This post is written by my husband, Tom Martin.

 My wife is very social.

  She enjoys interacting with people. It doesn't matter if she is at a party or a funeral. She loves to go to yard sales and talk to the people who are having it. She will even have a ten minute conversation with someone she knows if she happens to bump into them at the store.

 

I, on the other hand, am antisocial.

 A lot of people misunderstand that. Some think that that means that I am grumpy. But I am not,

at least not always. I am frequently happy, and even silly.

 Some people think that I mean that I don't like people, and I have been known to say it that way myself.

But that is not accurate either. I do like people. Just this weekend, I was at a garage sale and saw a Star Wars comic book for sale. I knew that a co-worker, someone I have almost never talked to, would love it. So I bought it and gave it to her the next day at work just to make her happy. Not something that someone who didn't like people would do.

 So what do I mean when I say that I am antisocial?

  I mean that I don't like socializing with people. I don't like the noise. I don't like the confusion. I don't like having to pretend that I am interested in what someone is blathering on about and wasting my time when I could be accomplishing something.

  I also don't like the demands on my time that people think they can make just because they know me.

 They had a company picnic at the company that I work for this past weekend. I didn't go. So this morning, the company H.R. person from the downstate branch came out to ask me why. I dodged the question, since it was none of her business. But it bothers me that they think that I should have to explain why I didn't give up part of my free time for their silly party.

 The only person I cheerfully sacrifice my free time for is my wife. And that is because I love her more than I love me.

 I don't feel bad about being antisocial. It can actually be rather convenient. Where I work people come and go all the time. But since I don't spend a lot of time learning about their lives, and forming emotional bonds with them, It can be weeks after they're gone before I notice, and I seldom miss them.

 This carries over to people who have died.

 My dear wife grieves over the death of people she hasn't seen since college, thirty-three years ago. If I haven't seen someone in two or three years I may feel a few seconds sadness, and then I am done.

 So if I don't socialize with you it's not because I don't like you, or because I am a grump. It is simply because it does not come naturally to me.