Tricking Myself

Tonight was my friend's Birthday party. I've known Chully almost 20 years now. He has it every year and I have been invited to his party since he's been in this place. Of the last 9 years , I've managed to attend 7. That's a pretty good track record for me. Sometime in the last decade I have lost my will to attend parties. Social events , in general, fill me with dread and the mere thought fatigues me. I'm a great one for offering to bring something or promising a host that I'll definitely be there and then. . . . . it's midnight and I accept to myself that I'm not going. I'll spend hours of what should be either a relaxing evening alone or a fun time at a party fretting over what I should do or what I feel like doing. Usually, I'll just fall alseep , fully dressed and made up , only to wake around midnight swearing to myself for missing something again.
So, if I am going to attend a party , I have to trick myself into not losing momentum by going home , or taking my pantyhose off or catching up on my reading . Any of those activities will lead me to bed and , thus, staying home. So , in order to attend tonight's festivities, I went shopping after work to stock up on a couple of necessaries : you know toothpaste , make-up , cotton balls, geeting cards. While I was there I tried to cruise around to get some Christmas present ideas. When I had spent an appropriate length of time, I went to the supermarket to pick up some stuff they didn't have at the store I went to yesterday. Then I headed home, didn't sit down, freshened up my make-up and headed out to the party. Basically, I tricked myself into getting out of the house to attend this party. Chully was glad to see me, I recognized a lot of faces but couldn't remember names. I sat with my friend Jack and his girlfriend, had some nice food. Chully makes a good lobster salad. I stayed for about 2 hours. Plenty of time to appear social . I will take credit for making the effort .
I'm sorry it requires so much effort. But it does.