Yeah, okay, I had stopped drinking several hours beforehand, but I was still probably far too buzzed to pass a blow-test. Traffic was light and everything went smoothly, so no real problems.
The bad news is that I met a couple of very... appealing women. As in aesthetically appealing. Yet in getting to know them a little bit more, the word shallow comes to mind. As does vain. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that. It was pretty much a theater-oriented party. And they were young. I am just having a bit of a cognitive dissonance moment when I want to say "wow, I think you're really pretty and I love looking at you, but I wouldn't seriously date you with a ten-foot pole. You need some depth". That is going so against the image that I want to put forth that it's making me crazy.
Understand that the party invitations called for "festive" wear. I was wearing ribbons and tinsel and antlers with christmas lights on them (yes, call me Mister Subtle). Most of the others dressed up a tad more formally. Thing was, it fit. I am not of the norm, and light-up antlers are much more me than formal wear can ever be. It wasn't pretentious, it was simply silly and disarming.
And it was a lot of fun. There was a lot of party gaming with Are You a Werewolf and Boxers or Briefs, and nobody drew blood or anything. There was hardly any drama (remember, this was a theater party), and there was even a good laugh at the expense of He Who Shall Remain Nameless in the Unapproachable Subject.
I felt old and nerdy and comfortable. Tomorrow I will probably be a tad hung over, but that's okay.
There are things over which I need to mull. Mostly they involve what I find attractive, and how what I think I like is betrayed by what I actually like. There is some overlap, but the parts that don't overlap are the ones that make me paint the walrus orange (sorry, metaphor gland is still broken).
I don't feel like a dinosaur. I don't feel complete yet either. But maybe there's something starting to gel.