Hi, I'm Terrified of You.

Hi, I'm terrified of people. Qualification: I fervently love people on an individual basis… individual relationships with established friends are an invaluable refuge from the insanity and inanity of the world. It’s really just groups of people that render me a teeth-chattering, clammy-palmed heart-attack-waiting-to-happen.

Want proof? My earliest evidence...

I am seven years old. I have just been invited to Vanessa Ray's eighth birthday party, which, incidentally, is a slumber party. My parents decide I will attend. I am given no choice in the matter. My mother drives the minute and forty-seven seconds to Vanessa's house without incident. She opens the car door to remove me from my seat, but I cling to the safety belt like it's a life preserver amid the sea of blankets that litter the backseat. My Teddy has been swallowed by said blanket/sea, and I attempt to avoid the same fate by screeching as though being devoured alive by fire ants. Not that I had any concept of how someone being devoured by fire ants would screech.

Needless to say, my mother shouted her apologies that I would not be in attendance to the horrified hostess over my shrieking. Her excuse was that I had suddenly fallen violently ill.

So, you see, it's all my mother's fault for giving me the idea that this is acceptable behavior.

I now routinely feign illnesses in order to avoid social gatherings. The severity of the illness normally corresponds to the gravity of the occasion; for a night of drinks with the ladies from work, a simple headache will suffice, while projectile vomiting is almost exclusively reserved for family reunions. Popular excuses for moderate situations include mild food poisoning (which I have never had), conjunctivitis (which I have never had), tonsillitis (which I have never had), and suspected appendicitis. In my defense, that last time, I was experiencing pain in the general vicinity of where I imagined my appendix to be, though my roommate now informs me that my appendix is actually on the opposite side of my body.

I do not attend parties of any kind.

Now I don't fake sick to ditch work or class. In my family, exclusions from work or school are warranted only in the case of expelling blood from two or more bodily orifices not designed for that purpose (which, thankfully, I have never had, and have never been remotely tempted to fake). For some inexplicable reason, this distinction between lying to avoid the office and lying to avoid everyone makes perfect sense.

I also do not, as one might think, take certain reasonable liberties with my stolen time. I don't sneak into movies or indulge in massages or tryst with the secret boyfriend whose company I prefer to all others; I take naps with my cat or sort my laundry or reread Frozen or Frankenstein or Fahrenheit 451. I do not plan for these occasions, and as a result I often end up thoroughly bored and relatively miserable. I can’t explain or excuse this behavior. I know these little white lies are morally reprehensible. I know that a visit to a psychiatrist would result in a prescription that might allow me to cope in group settings. But… where’s the fun in being fully functional?

So I’m paralytically shy. If you want to know anything else about me, your best bet is to corner me when I think I’m alone, because you still scare the shit out of me.