I don't do much socialising. My mother worries about it.
If I go to a gathering it tends to be a business event and I'm there for my firm. It's fine. I get to dress up and meet people I don't know. I spent years talking to strangers and coaxing them into telling me things they couldn't say out loud to their nearest and dearest. I was very good at it and I loved the instant, if fleeting, intimacy it created. So, it isn't that I don't like people. There are people I love. Those I don't like I find myself softening my stance on, somewhat, as I get older.
When I was at primary school I would find my mind wandering, mid-class, when the opening line of a song popped into my head. At that age it would be Jolene, The Wayward Wind, or King of the Road. Songs were magic to me, so I couldn't 'switch it off' until it had played out, even if my attention was required elsewhere. Often, I loved the feel of the melody and the words in my head so much that I would press replay several times. The lesson rolled by. I never did learn multiplication, but I can tell you every line to pretty much every song I've ever heard in my life.
These days I realise it is unprofessional to let my mind wander from the business in hand when I hear "Trailers for sale or rent..." or: "In a lonesome shack by a railroad track, I spent my younger days," in my head, so I pull my attention back when I need to.
But sometimes I let the song play out, for the same reason that I have never cut my engine while my car stereo is on until the song has reached its final bars. That would be so very disrespectful.
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