In Which only one Event can be Attended.

This evening, I have been invited to go and see my dear old friends Patrick, Spencer and Tim perform their musical stylings slash poetic readings in Kings Cross. This is all terribly exciting, naturally, since this is terribly Big Time for a bunch of lads whose usual gig is Monday night at Name This Bar on Oxford St. Problem is: Kings Cross is really far away from anything remotely resembling "places conveniently accessible by public transport from my flat". And in none of the Kings Crosses in the world, I suspect, is parking cheap or easy. Also it is horribly rainy, which makes going anywhere by public transport pretty aversive. Still, it is bound to be a super-great performance and all of that sort of thing. And I wish to say in advance that despite the tone of this post, I am genuinely excited about going. I like those guys and their stuff, and it's always a pleasure.

The real problem is that they're performing between 9:15 and 10 at night, at the same time as being on the opposite side of town to everything else that's happening tonight. Now, I don't know about you, but in my experience, any Saturday night when one is invited to one thing, one is invariably invited to two. It's not that I'm some kind of dazzling social butterfly, don't get me wrong, there are many Saturday nights when I spend a charming evening not invited to anything, cozily in my own home watching Midsomer Murders or something. It's just that some Saturdays are apparently more attractive to the event schedulers of the world than others. Usually what one does in this situation is either go "oh well", and just go to whichever event you were invited to first, or else try and juggle events by going to the first half of one and the second half of the other.

Now I won't deny that I'm clumsy at this, and I usually end up dividing the night into two grossly unequal portions, rather than properly halving either. I end up leaving the first event offensively early or else arriving at the second so late that the party is in the winding down phase and it seems faintly pointless. I think this is because of that generalised inertia I have. When I'm at one place, I tend to want to stay there (the same as the reason I stay up too late at night and have difficulty getting up; when I'm awake, I want to stay that way, when I'm asleep, ditto). The problem specifically is that even if I was fabulously adroit at all this and mingled between parties as effortlessly as I do between people at those parties (and, in fact, I essentially am equally good at mingling on both those levels. I'm a very poor mingler across the board. Maybe it's that inertia thing again?), not all the social skill in the world would make it easy to divide an evening neatly in twain when one of the events occurs smack bang in the middle of the evening, a 45 minute commute from the other.

I suppose this is a sign that I ought to just commit to one event or the other. But I really don't want to. You see, on the one hand, we have 3 dear old friends, one of whom is going overseas for a year pretty shortly, whose event is pretty important to them, who have very few confirmed attendees, and one of whom specifically clarified that I was planning to go, (because when your act is equal parts talent, charisma, poetry and injokes, it's good to have a certain quorum of people in the audience guaranteed to start clapping at the actual end of the poem/song, not just keep looking expectantly at you as if to say "Tetris? What's your point?"). Plus, I have an honour code about RSVPing. Once you've said you're going to something, even on facebook, you really ought to go. You're committed. Sadly, this event involves going very very far, largely on foot in uncofortable footwear, and a cover charge, and also foregoing the other event, which is this:

On the other hand we have a housewarming party in Newtown, being thrown by Tall Nice Marcus, a guy from uni. This, on the face of it, is the more easily jettisoned event. Except that I really like house parties, and more pressingly (and tragically?) it always seems terribly important to go to these things. Because it is only by going to an event with these people that you are invited to the next event. And it is only by going to the events that it is possible to in any way socialise with those crazy cats at my uni. It's that fabulously cliquey year 7 vibe all over again. When you're in, it's lovely, and people talk to you, and are charming, and add you on facebook (is it sad that it sort of excites me when folks do that?). Also, I really enjoy hanging out with those people when it works, because they are all terribly lovely and pleasant and so on. Also, apart from my obvious social-climbing, I am facinated by the way the uni folks interact.

It's almost anthropological. Their ways are not our ways, and it's intriguing. Apart from the fact that they all casually touch each other so often that it's fun just to try to figure out who's dating whom (if anyone) (and I like that as a game, anyway, because I like to live vicariously through others), there's also the spotlight phenomenon. When you're in the light, talking to them, attending their events, they welcome you, they are lovely, etc. But if you take a step back, out of the spotlight which illuminates them, you fall into the darkness, and the glare in their eyes makes them unable to see you at all. It's amazing. I have stood in a circle of people and seen some of the Stars of our year group flick their eyes around and make eye contact with all but one or two people. It's as if they literally cannot see the people who don't matter. I don't think they even realise that they do it. And it's confusing to try to figure out who does or does not matter, and why. Beautiful people often fail to make the visibility cut, which throws me, because I tend to assume that that sort of thing will be the heuristic in these cases. Which is nice, I guess, since it means that if you also fail to make it, then you don't need to angst like Kasey Chambers about it. But which makes Staying Visible a very attractive prospect. Otherwise, it's existential angst for all.

Of course, maybe writing this sort of creepy stuff about these people may be why I don't get invited to stuff all that often, really. Sorry dudes and dudettes, if you're reading. Like I said, I don't dislike you, I just find you fascinating and attractively alien. Which, yes, is weird of me.

Also, I really want to go, because this is a bunch of nice people who I would like to get to know better. But this sort of annoying clash keeps happening. The problem is that in my mind, this is essentially one of those stories just like every teen movie or TV show, where a character has to choose between doing something small and a little dorky with their old friends, or going to the party with the Cool Kids. Problem is, once it's framed that way, the Right Choice is obvious. A Good Person does not sacrifice their old friends for the chance at social betterment or a pleasant houseparty in Newtown or whatever. A Good Person treks through the rain to Kings Cross to see the same poems they saw last week, foregoing Michael Jackson costumery (!) and new friends.

The problem is, of course, that in a movie, this only happens once. The character either passes and realises that their old friends are their true yada yada yada or else fails and then has some kind of comeuppance later. And then they're done. But this seems to happen every time, and I end up trapped my my own black-and-white reading of the situation. Regarding which, bugger.

As a coda, I wish to again emphasise that I do actually want to go to the Kings Cross thing, it's just that I'm frustrated that I can't have it all. If this was a twitter post, I'd give it the hashtag #firstworldproblems. Also, again, if any of the uni people are reading this, sorry for overanalysing your social interactions, I realise that it's a bit creepy, but hey, everyone needs a hobby.