How to party?

On the weekend I drove to the southern city. It's a two hour drive and my car needs a wheel alignment.

'Go to Harv's' the local mechanic told me. He didn't want to do it himself and basically offloaded the job to someone who lived 200km from where I live and the borders were shut at the time. I was on the wrong side, so it's been several months of driving around with the wobblies.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, drove to the southern city, to attend a birthday party teeming with my oldest bestest friends in the world. Got a wheel alignment on my car. Taught the first week of semester at the university where I work.

Last semester was a bit of a washout, as everyone will know. All classes went online. I ran most of my classes via zoom from the Walpole laundromat, where I had a power point, a desk, some mobile reception and somewhere to do the washing. However, the uni has gone back to face to face teaching this semester, with a back-up online plan should shit hit the proverbial. 

I'm naturally isolated where I live. My nearest human neighbour is 25km away. So when I walked into the party in the southern city, the band was going off and it was dark but full of people shouting over the music and a fire burning in the back yard, my social anxiety kicked in immediately. An old friend spotted me standing uncertainly on the outskirts of the crowd. "Oh my god! Sarah! We were beginning to think you were a myth."

She moved towards me with her arms outstretched.

I used to love this scene. "This is our band!" I'd announce at every gig. "Everywhere we go, we get the band to come and play for us. Whoo!" And we'd be dancing and drinking ... and by the end of the night, we'd be rolling around in the dirt beside a fire. 

Nothing right now strikes me as more terrifying.

"No hugs, I'm not hugging tonight," I said to my old friend from the southern city and she kinda didn't believe me. I tried to explain that it wasn't her, it was me, and that Victoria was freaking me out. Victoria had it nailed and then they failed. For the rest of the night, I felt like I needed a sign written on my forehead - NO HUGS NO KISSES - because I had to negotiate it with every old friend I saw, and there were heaps there on Saturday night. Some took it personally, others shrugged and others looked me in the eyes across the fire, nodded and got where I was coming from.

We should never feel obligated to hug or kiss someone when we don't feel like it, but this virus is a whole new ball game. I sat with another old friend. We both had babies in the 1990s and these days she lives on a farm with her husband. When I first saw her at the party, I noticed that her body language was the same as mine. Don't hug me don't breath on me etc. I asked her about that.

"I've felt so safe on the farm," she said. "Now I'm here. It's really nice to see our crew but ..." And that's when it kicked in for me. I've been so isolated that I've felt really safe. Going into a party where everyone is shouting over the band and kissing ... it wasn't only social anxiety after a spell of being alone, it also felt existential.

I don't want to be the fun police here. As I said to the party host today, (she rang me because she saw how uncomfortable I was) this is my own personal viewpoint. I've lived in the bush on my own for a long time. It was just quite confronting to be in close quarters with a large amount of people.

How long will this whole thing last? Dunno. I feel we have to learn to live with it. People have adapted their behaviour in the past. We can too.

Update: there's a mob camping on the beach right where Selkie drowned that kangaroo, and where I dragged the carcass out and plonked it into the inlet with a brick and rope. The carcass is still a floater.  I've warned them not to go swimming there.