By Barbara Taylor Sanders
“Do I really have to go?” groaned my party pooper husband, not looking up from his computer. I sighed before appealing. I had expected resistance from him. After all, the Saturday late afternoon wedding reception was for a friend’s son whom he had never met.
“We don’t have to stay that long, but we really do need to go,” I gently coaxed.
From that point on my husband began to sulk, which gradually grew into an all-out stew. Although I chose to ignore his sullen mood, his curt remarks to me during the next few hours stung. Was I expecting too much? This subtle form of animosity used to ignite sparks between us, but after 30-plus years of marriage, I no longer give in.
“I wonder what makes me detest going to these things so much?” asked Daryl pensively. He slowly drove down the street as if he were facing the guillotine.
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“Yeah, I wonder, too. Why do you think?” I gently probed, hoping for some healthy dialogue about this age-old dilemma. Throughout the years, we would usually be so angry on the way to a social engagement, we’d drive along in hostile silence.
“I don’t know,” He shrugged, with an air of indifference. “Maybe it’s because I don’t know what I could possibly give to or get from these situations, but this of course, is not necessarily true.”
Do all party poopers feel this way? I wondered. It was keen insight, and I appreciated his candor. My dear husband was born with a melancholy temperament. I have learned to respect his reserve in social situations, knowing he’d rather be alone on an island reading a spy novel.
At social gatherings, he’ll always be found in a corner making idle conversation with another loner, looking ill at ease and anxious to escape. I have learned to avoid getting “the eye” toward the door when I am having fun talking with friends. During the holidays with our extended family, Uncle Daryl will likely be found on the sideline playing cards in semi-silence in a sullen foursome with similar dispositions.
I am at least thankful that my reluctant, but amiable, husband still goes out with me as a loving companion. He will never change, so I cannot cajole him into being the life-of-the-party. He has too many other wonderful qualities for me to be hung up on his lack of social graces. Besides, I enjoy being the life of the party.
On the way home from the dreaded wedding reception, I looked over at him and lovingly patted his arm. “Well, Mr. Social Butterfly, how’d you do back there?”
“I survived,” he said, sighing. “It was pure torture, exactly as I expected it to be.”
I smiled and shook my head. I had to ask, didn’t I?
