You don't get to touch me, ever!

My friends and I recently took another friend—a new foster parent—out for dinner. I went to pick her up, and so was briefly introduced to the kids. The 5-year old was chatty from the beginning; the 2- year old was a little more apprehensive. She was strapped into a high chair and had nowhere to hide from “the stranger,” so after a few frantic seconds, she ingeniously decided to hide her head inside her own shirt.

Later at the restaurant, I relayed this story to the rest of the group. Now, I have known all of these people for about 20 years…to say they’re familiar with me and my idiosyncrasies would be an understatement. Two of them had similar responses to the “hiding in her own shirt” story: “Well, you understand that feeling!”

Now, to be clear, I was not insulted by these statements in any way…I’ve always been the quiet one, and these friends have years and years of evidence to that fact. But while I’ll never be a social butterfly, it struck me that I don’t really equate myself with the “scared of people” persona anymore. Is it age? Wisdom? (Oh, who am I kidding…most likely, it’s the medication).

Anyway, fast forward a couple of weeks. I’m out with friends at a bar. Jeremy’s a few seats down from me, so it’s not clear that I’m with anybody. A man comes over and starts talking to my friend and me. He has an accent (although I’m not convinced that it was real), so I ask where he’s from. He answers with a (possibly made-up) country I’d not heard of…and at this point, I’m out of polite chitchat. I’m even several beers in at this point, and yet I got nothing. And it’s not like I need to chat this guy up—my husband is three seats away, for God’s sake! So what do I do?

I run away to the bathroom.

I mean, what is up with that? The guy came up to me; I had no reason to try and impress him; and yet I freaked out and ran for the ladies room. In my defense, I had no other choice—I was wearing a V-neck.

There’s really nowhere to hide in a V-neck.