Halloween Socializing

Usually, when I go out to bars, I stand or sit quietly off to one side. I try my best to have some halting conversation with anyone in my group that I happen to want to date, and then talk to my roommate. Mostly though I just sit and look at people and don't talk to anyone. I imagine this comes across as creepy. I'm working on changing my ways, (mostly through the haltingly painful conversations), but change is slow.

On Saturday a bunch of us went to a bar for a friend's birthday. Some of us went in costume, including me. My costume, as is illustrated below, was a grim reaper, aka Death, aka anyone from the intro of Dead Like Me. (Also, my nickname at work is The Grim Reaper of the Napa Valley, so it seemed fitting.) (I'm by myself in the picture because I'm not sure that my roommate wants his picture bandied about on the internet. However, that's his Zorro shadow next my death shadow.)

It was pointed out, both at the bar and at a Halloween party I went to last night, that my usual practice of standing in a corner not talking to anyone, but this time in a grim reaper costume, hugely magnifies the creepy, and yet, seemed kind of appropriate. I mean, Death wouldn't dance to Hey Ya.

Since the party was chocked full of attractive girls I wanted to talk to, it was kind of frustrating. I had 2 or 3 failed attempts at conversation where there would be some brief back and forth, followed by an uncomfortable silence, followed by a disturbing lack of eye contact on my part, followed by her retreat to find someone less creepy to talk with, followed by more standing quietly in a corner in my Death outfit. After a few hours of this, I decided I would go home at a none to respectable 10pm.

Which, upon consulting a properly set clock, became an even less respectable 9pm.