Ant-E-Social

I've been in a bit of an antisocial mood lately. Well more of a selective antisocial mood. I've been trying to date here and there with predictable results. It's been disappointing. I've no clue why I keep trying.

Fortunately though, I've met a guy (let's call him Spades) that I think is shaping up to be a really cool friendship. (Famous last words, of course.) The biggest thing I like about him....he says what he says and means what he means. We hung out this past Saturday and the thing I liked was that Spades called beforehand to make sure we were still on. Usually that's something I have to do and sometimes I don't even get the guy I'm trying to reach. So the fact that he was doing it was a plus.

We really hit it off during lunch, I even swatted a wasp for him with my bare hands. Gross. That pretty much ended lunch and we wound up going to Oak Brook to do some shopping. Overall I had a great time.

We hung out again tonight (09/19) at TGIF's and again Spades called about an hour before the event to make sure that we were still on. That was real cool. Of course he wound up being fifteen minutes late. Well you can't have everything...*LOL*.

Hemingway we may hang out together in Vegas for my post-birthday. We both tripped out when learning that we share the same birthday (except I'm 5 years his senior). So I already booked my trip to Vegas, which will happen immediately after my trip to Raliegh. Hopefully he'll be able to book his soon. We'll see. I so can't wait for my annual vacation time to come up.

Again. Hemingway...a new season of bowling starts at my job. My old team has totally disbanded. Star bowler Reid decided to retire from the game and devote more time and money to fishing. Others weren't as receptive to bowl at the same league and I not wanting to be a martyr again (basically bowling almost 100% of the time) opted to disband the team.

I was actually content with not bowling this year. But word of our team's demise spread fast and next thing I know, the rival captain from last year was asking me to join their team. Actually I believe she asked Reid before me, but well his, you know, retirement and well....one thing led to another and I'm back in the league.

But that may be temporary. Truth is, I'm not really feeling the bowling thing this year. Everyone is so overly chatty and I feel bad because I don't feel particularly chatty. Twice I had to rebuff attempts to hang out with my team and others afterwards for dinner. I do realize the whole point of bowling is to interact with others on your team and possibly do some networking. I don't know. It feels weird bowling on a different team and not being the captain.

I was a bit annoyed too during our first week bowling. I came a few minutes late and they have the rule now that if the other players there complete their 3rd frame, then they don't allow you to jump in. The reason is because they have a union league that comes immediately after our league and they want to speed things up. That was one of the things that my former team was annoyed about. It just felt like we were being rushed. So that irked me a bit.

Second annoying point of the evening. I finally get to bowl in the second game and my game is so-so, nothing spectacular. So I tell another bowler that I'm bowling for handicap this week. So then she immediately starts yelling to the entire alley and pointing at me calling me a sandbagger. For those that don't know, sandbagging is when you're bowling way below your normal average, which yeilds you a higher handicap, and later on when you kick ass, your team can win because you're bowling way above average.

So of course now everyone's making a stink about it and everytime I miss a spare, I'm hearing how I'm purposely doing it. Then another guy bowls a 225 and makes it a point to say that he wasn't sandbagging. Then another guy gets accused of sandbagging. It was so irritating.

I'm like really not feeling this bowling thing this season. I was invited by the other team to bowl because their normal regular injured himself in an accident and would likely be out of commission for a minute. Hopefully he'll get back in business soon so I can quit. I'm like so ready for this season to be over and it hasn't even gotten to week two yet.

Maybe I'll be better this week. Eugene kept asking me why I didn't want to hang out with them afterwards. The thing is I know my captain does the dinner thing every week. And I'm like, I can do it once a month but I'll be damned if I have to go out every week. Number one, they're co-workers and I don't share much of my life with them and I feel like I'm on the spotlight everytime. It's challenging enough as it is chatting while bowling...*LOL*.

So you may ask, why am I even bowling? When I come up with a plausible answer, I'll let you know. Heh...as Big Marz would say....A MESS!