It's as inevitable as the setting sun or death & taxes. There comes a point in every personal relationship I have when I become disappointing. (At least here at work it's taken me two years to get there.) And what I mean by that is I just don't need people enough or alcohol-induced socialization enough for whatever the fuck's considered normal, and this lack of need gets in the way of perception. Maybe it comes down to extroversion vs. introversion--not to be confused with shyness--but I really would rather spend my weekends/evenings strolling the city discovering new stuff all by my lonesome, or curled up with a good book, than with mass companions. This has served me well back home, but I'm finding that in the insular, artificially shrunken world of expatting, it stamps a big scarlet S (for "savant") on your forehead (or in my case, fivehead) the more your RSVPs fall resoundingly in the "No" column.
Case in point, last weekend I decided not to go to a progressive dinner party (the kind where you walk to a new home for each course) when I realized there would be kre8tiv games played in teams (such as, create a silly new dance with your teammates!). If there exists an alternative hellish social event as creative team games, I sure couldn't picture it (oh OK, a scrapbooking circle with Oprah fans?). The end result was alienation from a few coworkers. Because here's the thing about international teaching, you are certainly eating where you're shitting and your coworkers are indeed your friends, no matter how much you resist the notion. It's a mind-altering amalgam of that adage, "you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family." sigh
ETA: This is all orthogonally related to whether I like my coworkers, which I do. There are some great people in the bunch.
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