Watching all of my co-workers drag themselves into work this morning (green, exhausted and in pain), after a late night of partying (to say good-bye to two employees who left this week for other opportunities), has got me thinking again…
Since arriving at my current job, I have found myself in a new and rather unusual situation: I am decidedly uninterested in doing all that much socializing with my co-workers. And it’s not that I don’t like them or that I don’t enjoy spending time with them, because I do, but I think it really has more to do with the fact that most of them are relatively young and single and their idea of hanging out tends to include a lot of alcohol (which is also probably a function of being in NYC).
Logistically, my life does not lend itself to being very drinking-friendly (even if I were so inclined, which I’m actually not), given how far out of town we live and that the only real way to get there is to drive. And, since most socializing events take place in Manhattan, not only do I have to deal with the drive home post-party, but that first means that I need to go get my car from the garage, drive into Manhattan, find someplace to park (and usually pay about $30 for it), and then catch up with everyone, spend the evening not drinking while being surrounded by people who are hammered, only to then leave and drive home.
So I don’t honestly know if it’s just that the logistics of my life are not conducive to it, or if I’m just past the point in my life where the idea of drinking stupidly (especially with co-workers) just doesn’t hold any appeal.
I know that when I’m home with my friends, I don’t mind drinking heavily. There is certainly a bit of a “safety” factor at home with my long-time friends that I don’t have in New York. There is also the fact that I don’t tend to find most of them as annoying when drunk as I do most people (though, that could just be the “I love and put up with my friends” more than the fact that they are somehow innately less annoying when drunk than other people).
The pickle this new found preference puts me in, however, is that means that for the first time in my career, I am not cultivating my circle of friends at work, because I am putting tragically little effort into fleshing out those relationships.
Honestly, I think that part of this is also due to having a partner for the first time in my life. Having never had someone “waiting at home” before (other than the pooch) meant that I was never necessarily in that big a hurry to get home for any reason. And now I will usually find an excuse to go home to him stead of going out.
Am I using him as an excuse to slide into anti-social behavior? Or am I being anti-social because I’d rather spend time with him than anyone else?
Honestly, I’m not sure. I think it goes back and forth: some days it’s one, other days it’s the other. Either way, this gets me back to the main point I’ve been lamenting since leaving Massive and that’s the fact that I’ve done a piss poor job making friends since moving back to NY.
Of course, now that I’m ready to move out of NYC, I’m not sure how much effort I really want to put into fixing it at this point.
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