We're having guests over tonight and it's throwing me off.
And here I'm going to discard Army Wife PC and talk about rank. Some bloggers talk about this, some don't, to each their own.
It happens that these two guys are not just people whom I have never met but also a couple of 2nd lieutenants, which, for those of you civilians reading, is the entry level commissioned officer rank, commonly referred to as "butter bars," because the rank is symbolized by one gold bar. After about a year, they get promoted to 1st lieutenant.
Anyway, I digress. This would still be fine and all, because rank or not, guys are guys. They are going to drink alcohol, grill and yell at the TV. In all of these activities, I get to play merely a supporting, mostly invisible role; a role that I'm comfortable in, a role that I vastly prefer over any other.
However, they are not coming solo, they are bringing their wives. This changes the entire dynamic. Will the wives be upstairs in the man room, howling at the TV with the guys? Or will they be downstairs with me? If they are downstairs with me, what in the heck am I going to do with them?
My epic misadventures in socializing have already been well documented in this blog. Now I must socialize with two women whom I have never met, who also happen to be officer's wives. And maybe that shouldn't matter and maybe it won't. But it's there. I know women don't carry their soldier's rank, but it has an impact all the same.
When the wives of Keith's men come by, I'm never entirely sure if they are being nice because they like me, or because I'm Keith's wife. That's just the way it is. When I'm meeting a wife of a man with a higher rank than Keith, especially if he's in Keith's chain of command, I'm on my best behavior. Why? Not just because I'm normally polite, though I am, but because I am aware that the husband of that woman supervises my husband.
I can pretend that this isn't true and that it doesn't matter, but in actuality, it is real and it does matter.
My first experience with an Army wife was a bad one, so I try really hard when meeting other wives to be the opposite of what I experienced. I try very hard to be non threatening, encouraging and warm. I try very hard to completely forget their husband's relationship to mine. This is hard not because I don't like the women, but because I have a hard time socializing, period.
It's all very well and good to say "be oneself." But what if being oneself is to be a mix between a shy six year old girl and a shy sixty year old woman? (I suppose it comes as no surprise that I get along best with people in those age ranges.) I throw people the hell off when I'm being myself. They just don't know what to do with me. I'm overeager, accommodating, warm, tongue tied and awkward; I can literally get stuck in the middle of a conversation and have nothing more to say or add. Nothing. Just marooned there, silent. That's me. That's who I am.
If I were more sophisticated I would have developed an alter ego, a social persona that I could present at social occasions. This would be a great tool, if I had this. But I don't. So I'll do what I always do, simply lower my head like a beast of burden and pull the hell through, as though it were a particulary difficult field to plow. Which it certainly is.
Oh well. No more time for griping. I must go to Krogers and buy stuff. Maybe I'll start like several killer baking projects so that I'm "trapped" in the kitchen all evening, kneading dough and flouring baking pans. Maybe I'll just get really drunk off my head, which actually is not a good idea, since I took the first clomid this morning and have already felt like crying a few times in the past couple hours.
Lord help me.
