Prom again

SOM has two formals a year, tied to winter and spring. I managed to miss both last year, but on Friday night I attended my first, the Mad Men-themed winter formal at which I enjoyed myself insofar as I had several nice conversations and felt occasional glimmers of gratitude for witnessing an affair that is significant to my friends and that would be fodder for chastization were I to miss it yet again. Dancing to Don't Stop Believin' and various songs by Ke$ha with mindless abandon is not exactly my primary source of escapist joy, but that's not the formal's fault; it's just how I'm wired.

As an introvert (and perhaps as a gay introvert to boot) I think I'm cursed with an isolating sense of feeling like an outsider at big formal dances. I tend to look at people and puzzle at the source of pleasure. And when I don't quite get it, and yet everyone else is happier than I've ever seen them, I worry that perhaps I'm from some other dimension, and I will always be incompatible with most of what happens around me on Earth.

Is that true, though? Am I a weirdo because I preferred the small pre-party gathering at my apartment to the party itself? Am I an even graver weirdo because, frankly, I would prefer playing cards with three friends and eating cookies and drinking coffee to moving around rhythmically in a suit as trite songs that have no meaning to me blast in my ear, and various colored lights go on and off overhead, and people, many if not most of whom I will rarely or never see again come May, stumble by and dribble uninspired mixed drinks onto my shoes? I hope not.

Anyway, glad to have gone. Part of the grad-school experience, and the fruits of what I know was a great deal of effort and anticipation on my classmates' part. Will keep my options open when the spring formal rolls around.