A Cautionary Tale

I have a love/hate relationship with my job. I love what I do, but I hate the fact that I have to commute to do it. And because of the commute, any type of social life that I once had has pretty much ceased. I used to be able to go out with my friends in LA after work, but now all I want to do is go home since the drive home is that tedious.

So knowing that there are all of these things to do at any some odd day of the week since I live in Southern California, I decided to eek out a social life once more however tiny it may be. I decided to do that with the help of Yelp!. Yelp! helps get me out of the house because what it is is a website made up of peoples opinions about stuff to do, see and experience and these generally cannot be done at home. And that makes me be more social and have something to write about.

So... this week was the first time I attended an officially sponsored Yelp! event. It was a house err hotel warming of sorts in Huntington Beach. And it was held at about the same time I landed back in OC, which meant I could go! Yippee! So dressed in my work garb, I traipsed over to the hotel and found my way up the stairs to the restaurant's balcony where all the people were. I was there for maybe over two hours talking to all these amazing people who participate on Yelp! just like I do. It was a very cool evening and I was encouraged to go to next weeks event.

So, I got to work the next day and I told my co-worker about what a good time I had out last night with my fellow Yelpers. And he tells me this story. He told me that one of his friends is into Disneyana and joined a group and befriended a man in his 60's. At first, he was fine because he was into the group, but more and more he wanted to hang out and do other stuff to fill up the void his day. The old man had recently retired and basically had no one to socialize with so he placed that burdeon upon my friend's friend. And as time went on, his friend decided that the old man was just plain mean and disgruntled with the world in general and had no friends. So my friend's friend decided he was going to take him on a bus run to Palm Springs or Las Vegas, I don't remember which one, and force this old guy to socialize with other people his age to get him some friends.

And a light bulb went off in my head. AHHH! I don't want that to be me. I don't want to end up a mean old lady alone because people can't tolerate me and/or don't like me. I want to have something to say. I want to get out in the world. I need Yelp! and these outings to get me to be more extroverted and less introverted. And maybe that will lead to other good things in my life.