I ended up having an OK time last night. It wasn't the best New Year's Eve I've ever had, but it was better, honestly, than I expected. For most of it, it was, I'm not going to lie, incredibly uncomfortable. Mainly because I don't do well in crowds, and I especially don't do well in crowds where I don't know anyone (or, in this case, I know few people. The only people I knew were NewJeff and his wife, Katia.)
I got there at about quarter 'til 10 and called Ashley to talk to her until I wasn't early. (NewJeff had told me to be there at 10.) I went in and sat at the table where NewJeff was sitting until the band started and where his wife was sitting. I feel a little bit of. . .something from his wife. I kind of get the impression she doesn't like me, but since I've never actually done anything to her, I just have to assume that either she's just not a person that is genial to people she doesn't know well, or I'm just paranoid. Maybe it's a combination of the two.
Anyway, they started playing around 10:15, and over the next hour and a half, I listened to the music (awkwardly, I might add) and texted Ashley and MK. Truly, I was so far out of my element, I was wondering if the entire evening was just going to be incredibly awkward for me. At about 20 'til 12, the band stopped playing and there was a random buffet. Score. NewJeff came down and was talking to me, so I felt exponentially more comfortable (not that NewJeff makes me feel more comfortable in general, but the fact that I had someone to talk to that didn't involve small talk was good.) He was fighting about something with his wife, so that was awkward, but I was so relieved to have someone to talk to, and that particular level of awkward was so much less than the level of awkward I was feeling prior, it was a welcome change.
So I'm standing there and this guy comes up to me. He was looking rough. Very, very rough. He holds out his hand and says, "We haven't met. I'm _______." I don't remember his name. He didn't look like he was mentally all there. But he had an uncomfortably firm handshake. . .it was like, I was well aware of the fact that if he wanted to, this man could probably break my hand without thinking twice about it. Then he kissed my hand, during which time I literally had to hold back a shiver of revulsion. Like. . .it was SO UNCOMFORTABLE. He finally lets go, and I take a step back. It occurs to me now that I probably should have given him a fake name, but I am in situations like this so infrequently, it didn't even occur to me. However, Sarah is a common enough name that I don't think it was a big deal.
He starts talking to me about how he's never seen me there before, and he hopes that 2009 is better than 2008 was. I said something like, "Yeah, it was a rough year for me, too," you know, trying to make small talk with this man who made me so uncomfortable, I wanted to run away screaming and take a scalding shower to get the fact that he kissed my hand off of me. But I also got the impression that if I were rude, or if I made it obvious he was making me uncomfortable, I would probably regret it somehow.
Then he says to me, "Yeah, well, I was in prison this year."
Yikes.
I said, "Oh. Well, that WOULD make for a bad year." This is a prime example of both me talking too much when I get uncomfortable and me saying probably the wrong thing at the wrong time.
He continues with, "It was a little thing. I didn't kill nobody. Didn't rape nobody." And as he's saying this, he's stepping closer to me and I'm fighting the urge to run away.
During this time, I'd forgotten NewJeff was standing behind me. But he was, watching the entire exchange. The Convict gestured toward NewJeff and said, "Is this your boyfriend?"
Now, if I were smart, and if I were used to creepy guys hitting on me, I would have said yes. However, I'm so used to denying involvement with NewJeff (I can't remember if I mentioned in here how everyone at work thinks he and I have something going on, but they do. I have said, "No. There is NOTHING GOING ON," so many times, it's really just become second nature.) that I immediately said, "No! No, he's not my boyfriend."
Stupid, stupid Sarah.
He said something I don't remember, and said it was nice to meet me. And then he hugged me. I could feel my gag reflex acting up, but he was surprisingly strong for someone so short. Again, I felt like if I legitimately tried to struggle to get away, I wouldn't be able to. He tried to kiss my face but I twisted my head so he couldn't get to me, and he finally let go. I (again, talking too much and talking nervously) said something to the effect of, "Oh, wow. I'm not really a hugging person." He walked away.
NewJeff (who, if you'll remember, was standing right behind me the entire time) comes up and says something like, "You know, if, in a situation like that, you need me to be your boyfriend, that's fine."
I didn't think about this until later, but when I did think about it, I. . .got mad. Jeff just stood there and watched this entire exchange. I mean, when the guy who we suspect may have been slightly stalking Carrie was in her office, I went into her office and stood there while he talked to her, because I could tell she was a little freaked out. Jeff just stood there. (When I told Carrie about this later, she said, "Well. . .he's Jeff." Legit. But that doesn't mean that I wasn't still angry about it.)
Anyway, Jeff then proceeds to tell me that the guy had gotten out of prison three months ago for "involuntary manslaughter." He'd been in for like 6 years, apparently. Now, I don't know a whole lot about the justice system, but I so know that sometimes, you can plead down. So it's entirely possible that he killed someone on purpose but was sentenced to a lesser sentence or something. I don't know how he got there, but the point was, he was there.
The guy kept looking at me, and as Jeff is saying something to the effect of, yeah, you should stay away from that guy, the guy walks by again and says something to the effect of, "Seems like everyone's talking about me." And Jeff says, no, man, we're not talking about you. And he kept WATCHING me.
I am actually going to go take a nap right now (because sitting in bed all day and watching Iron Chef America is truly exhausting) and I'll finish the story later.
One last thing I'll throw in that has nothing to do with anything: I randomly found out today that the Reba McEntire song "She Thinks His Name Was John," is about a woman that got AIDS from a one-night stand. I. . .had no idea. I've been listening to that song, literally, since I was about 9, and I always thought it was just a song about a woman who slept with a guy the one time, and fell in love with him but never saw him again. I could never figure out why she was making such a big deal out of it, and why she couldn't have a marriage or kids after that one night. I really thought that it was because she became so attached to him after that one night, she became obsessed and went crazy. I didn't realize how off-the-mark I was. Wow. It's weird when you find things out like that, that completely change your perception of something that you didn't realize you had a perception of in the first place. Crazy.
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