My first night out, that wasn't fun.

Went out tonight with my roomate Kristen and a group of her friends. Some of the same kids I went out with last weekend but tonight I just didn't have a great time. I'm not really sure why, everyone that was out was perfectly friendly, didn't really treat me as an outsider or anything. It was just one of those nights where you feel like you're on the outside of something good, but the way in is just way too complicated. The way in seemed impossible or, at the very least, improbable. The risks of getting into that group of friend entails tolerating awkward silences when you made a joke that would've been funny to your friends back home but just wasn't to these kids. Getting into that group would've meant revealing some baggage, talking about friends back home, shedding light on some of the problems I left behind, putting myself out on a limb I just didn't want to be on right now. Getting in with there group would've meant taking that chance that is so difficult to take: the chance that they just won't like you. Or vice versa. People have inside jokes, people have histories together, mutual friends, mutual political ideals, can gossip about the same people. None of that scares me, none of that keeps me on the outside of them. What keeps me on the outside is the fear of not being liked. It's so simple, it's so fucking middle school. But it is what it is. I'm a week into school and don't have anybody to go out with tommorrow night (Friday), and it's a little scary.
I've thought through the reasons I'm scared, the reasons I'm worried, the reasons I'm lonely and, at moments, sad. The strangest thing though, I'm still pretty happy. I realized tonight on the short walk home from being the "outsider" that I've been on the outside before. Tim, Joe, Tony, Jamal, they grew up together. They were friends before I met them that first night freshman year. They were older, they had inside jokes, mutual friends and experiences and I still became amazing friends with them. Those kids ended up some of my closest friends, despite me being an outsider. Locos. Some of those kids had waited tables for years together. They had so many memories of blurry drunken nights, hook ups and hangovers that I never believed I'd be a part of them. They had grown up together, and yet a couple months later I was not the guy on the outside, but a central and integral part of a solid and loyal group of friends. The real fact of the matter is not that I'm an outsider. I'm an INSIDER. I'm the biggest insider, with Locos and with Tim, Tony, Geoff and the gang. Despite those phenomenal, lifelong friendships, none of those guys will be here tommorrow to go out and have a few beers. That's scary, really scary. I have no doubt in my mind that I'll end up with a solid group of friends here in Chicago. It took time with everybody back home and it'll take time here, but it'll happen. I think the past couple of weeks has taught me a lot. I think back in Athens I had this notion that stress, anger, anxiety or loneliness meant you HAD to be unhappy. It doesn't. Tonight, I'm lonely but I'm not unhappy, I'm...lonely. That doesn't really mean anything. Tommorrow I'll get to school, find the couple guys I've been hanging out with a lot, bitch about the reading, and forget that last night I was lonely. Hell, we might even get some beers after class.