Social Skills

I have sympathy for the socially excluded, as I have often felt isolated myself. In new surroundings, some people gravitate towards each other faster than others and that depends both on the nature of a particular person and the nature of the other people in the group. I have felt at home in some groups almost instantly and never managed to feel at home in others. Over the years, I have become reasonably confident of navigating in groups that are not my natural habitat, mainly because I have become more comfortable with myself and with spending time by myself without any bitterness or rancor towards the group that I don't feel a part of. But, I know what it feels like to feel alone in a crowd and I have sympathy for social misfits.

So, when one of the people in my group asked me if he could join me on my weekend plan I agreed. He is not a social misfit but what I would call a sensitive boy lacking in confidence, which could partly be because he is younger than me. And, while I like being by myself, my solitude is not sacrosanct. I can give it up if it makes someone feel less alone. Our little group grew and soon we were five.

One of our members is a weirdo, so I had sympathy for him. I would pull his leg because that is my way of making some people seem less annoying to me, but he didn't get my quips most times and didn't seem to mind when he did. We accommodated him and one of us even accompanied him to a museum he wanted to see while the others waited. And then, towards the end of the day, he just disappeared without so much as a by your leave. We waited for him to reappear and finally called him, which is when we learned that he was already on his way back.

We cursed him and got on our way, when he finally reappeared at the train station of our summer school. I had nothing to say to him and neither was I very angry. The others remonstrated with him but I just couldn't be bothered.  I suppose as you get older, you start to respond to more situations with indifference rather than anger. He certainly lacks in social skills but that is not my problem. Maybe he needs help, but I am not the one to help him. Not all socially excluded people are nice and I have little sympathy for those who are not.