Friend-ly dinners with a dash of 'outspoken'

Alrighty, then. I went to my first official GirlFriend Circles outing (excepting the mandatory Connecting Circle, of course) last weekend and it was pretty awkward. Not good, not natural, not fun. I started a film club on the site and our first outing was to see Eat, Pray, Love. One of the two ladies who RSVP'd suggested we all get dinner beforehand and a plan was struck to dine at Dosa. Afterwards we would head over to the theater and tuck in to watch the film.

Dosa on Fillmore is one of my current favorite restaurants in San Francisco. The food is totally yummy, unique and organic, and the physical space is super cool (insane chandeliers! massive saturated color prints of Indian scenery! bamboo everywhere!). I was super looking forward to this outing, an excuse to dine at Dosa. But, dining there on what's essentially a blind date with two women that were not such great personality matches for me = oy. I didn't enjoy my food in the least, and in fact, it felt a little tasteless (due to the situation, not the restaurant's ability). I was counting the seconds until we could move over to the theater where I wouldn't have to make awkward conversation any more. It was just all wrong.

Flash forward to last night, when I met with my book club for the first time. This was my very first book club experience ever and I really had no idea what to expect. Like, were there going to be formal questions to answer? Was I expected to expound upon the themes of the book? (Reminder/reality check: dude, this is a Chick Lit book club!) Oddly enough, this month's book had a book club scene within, in which one of the characters hosts a meeting and mentions that they've always spent five minutes actually talking about the book and the rest of the time chit-chatting and getting drunk. We didn't get drunk last night but there was wine involved, and the requisite five minutes - and five minutes only - of talking about the book. Phew! I didn't care for the book, to the point where I stopped reading about a third of the way through and thought I would be admonished for such naughty book club behavior. So glad I wasn't.

Most relieving was that this outing went much better than the GFC dining/film club date. I felt more of an immediate connection to these women and in particular to my right-hand neighbor who I seemed to have much in common with. Mostly, I felt like I was being "authentic" (FYI, I hate that word but can't think of another for this context) in the group, meaning that I was being my usual shy self instead of some circus clown trying to get the party started. We were all more or less contributing equally to the vibe of the group which I can't say about the GFC outing.

The commonality between the two groups is that at least one of the attendees present was from the outspoken camp, and thus rubbed me the wrong way. I've always tended to have issues with people who are bossy, or who are bullies or who are know-it-alls (a "sabetodo" for those of you who also took Ms. Garcia's 9th grade Spanish class). In an attempt to recognize that everyone has a different personality - and that just because I have issues with the types I mentioned doesn't mean they're any less valid than the rest of us - I reframed and pooled these types into one category called 'outspoken'. Nothing wrong with outspoken, right? Outspoken people tend to be mavericks and can really get some shit done in this world.

Most recently, I've been fired up about my personal trainer, aka Yoga Trainer, who is both 'outspoken' and egotistical. In processing this anger with my therapist this week, she helped me articulate what this is really about, what my beef really is. Dialogue. And specifically: the lack thereof.

I like when I can have dialogue with people. In fact, I can get along with pretty much anyone as long as there can be some dialogue and a fundamental understanding that we both bring intelligence to the table. No doubt I've struggled a great part of my life with feeling like I'm "less than" and so 'outspoken' folks can really chap my hide. For instance, in putting strong opinions out there as fact and then shutting down any opposing viewpoints expressed (which is the most frequent offense of the 'outspoken' person), it sounds off an alarm inside me... the alarm that goes "this person does not value you!" The alarm that reacts with either "run away and hide!" or "fight this person to the death!" Older brings wiser and now I know that neither of those reactions work very well. Not taking it personally is the best defense of course (I struggle, seriously). Not taking the bait seems to be the second best. I go to therapy to understand myself in depth and so I'm glad I articulated this dialogue concept. I can struggle to not take it personally and/or not take the bait, but really I want to understand why it feels personal, or why the bait is being dangled in front of me, to begin with.

Now, back to my outspoken GFC and book club peers. I have to be honest: nothing is more off-putting in a potential friend than getting the 'outspoken' vibe. It's a good thing I realized this and can now walk away thinking "we're not a good match" rather than "whatta bitch." (I'm human and so I tend to leap to the latter assumption, especially in the heat of the moment when I feel so - yes, I'm gonna go there - desperate to find connections with other women.)

This whole trying to meet new friends thing is taxing but highly interesting. I'm about as introverted as you can get so I really feel it when I get back to my car to go home after an outing and am so relieved that it's over. But, I think it's good for me in that way, to push myself outside of my comfort zone. It's been a really long time since I've made new friends to hang with, even from the most natural source: the workplace. Of course it's going to be super awkward and hopefully, in the end, it will have been super rewarding.

On a last note, I accidentally fulfilled an item on my list! I wanted to try two new restaurants - the first was Another Monkey, of course, and the accidental second was our book club venue, Pane e Vino. I would never have dined there under normal circumstances but it was really quite good. As I'm having this strange and sudden love affair with arrabiata sauce, I ordered the Diavola pizza (sans salami) and wanted to eat the entire thing right there and then. It still could never beat the Inferno pizza from the restaurant named Diavola in Geyserville but hey, it was a very worthy second best!