The Social Acceptability Feature
The problem with living inside your head is communicating with people outside of it.
I’ve come to learn that when I spend a great deal of time alone with my thoughts, there is some sort of “social acceptability” feature that gets switched off in my brain. As long as I remain alone, it is perfectly fine that my social acceptability feature is switched off.
When I re-enter humanity it can quickly become a problem.
This was brought into stark relief as I was ordering a beer at a quiet seaside bistro in southern Oregon- my first human interaction for some time.
The menu’s description of this particular beer was unusually florid. It mentioned not only the copper color of the beer, but it’s accompanying “off-white” foam. Seriously. It went on to tout the aromas and flavors of the beer which included: grapefruit, blueberry, lychee fruit, peach, citrus, papaya and light candy.
I have no idea why “grapefruit” and “citrus” were distinct from each other. Or what “light candy” is exactly. Is that cotton candy? Low fat candy, maybe? Or if not, are there other beers out there with notes of “hard candy”?
Anyway, the whole thing made me giggle and so when the server came over I asked after this particular beer and she said cheerfully “oh yes, it is very good!”
And because I have the aforementioned “social acceptability” feature switched off, I looked her RIGHT IN THE EYE and asked her if she could confirm that this beer had notes of blueberry, grapefruit, lychee fruit, peach, citrus, papaya and “light candy”?
I expected her to find this repartee completely charming.
She didn’t.
She just looked at me like she wanted to leave right then and there, smiled awkwardly, said “um. sure……” and took my order.
I spent the rest of the meal attempting to restore her faith that I was ACTUALLY A TOTALLY NORMAL PERSON, which, because I tried so vigorously at it, I failed.
*sigh*
(And because you are no doubt hanging on every word here, I can confirm that the beer had notes of…. beer. It tasted like beer.)
