# The Office Party Is Thursday. I've Dreaded It Longer Than It'll Last. The Reading Asked Why Showing Up Feels Like a Performance.
The email went out three weeks ago. "Save the date." Team dinner. A bar I've been to once, for exactly this kind of thing, and swore I'd never go back for. The invite's been sitting in my calendar like a dentist appointment, and I've already rehearsed three different excuses in my head, none of which I'll actually use because I know I'll end up going and then hating every minute of it.
Here's the part I don't understand about myself. I like most of these people. Individually. In small doses. I'd get coffee with half of them. But the idea of two hours in a loud bar, making conversation over the noise, performing some version of myself that's friendly and interesting and definitely-not-counting-the-minutes — it fills me with a dread that's wildly disproportionate to the actual event. Two hours. That's it. I've spent longer than that dreading it.
And I can't tell if I should just go and get it over with, or finally let myself skip it and sit with whatever guilt follows.
What the reading said
I did a reading. The question: should I go to the office party?
The reading didn't answer it. It asked: what are you actually dreading — the party, or the version of you that has to show up to it?
I had to sit with that one for a while.
Because it's not the party. The party is a bar and some appetizers. What I dread is the performance. The me who has to be "on" for two hours — chatty, engaged, asking the right questions, laughing at the right moments, never letting the silence get awkward, never letting anyone see that I'd rather be home in sweatpants. I've done this so many times that the performance and the person have blurred, and now I can't tell if I'm skipping the party or just exhausted by my own act.
The reading pointed at the uncomfortable question underneath: why do I think the real me — the quiet one, the one who'd rather have a real conversation than work the room — isn't allowed to show up at work?
What happened
I went. But I made a deal with myself first: I'd show up as the real me, not the performance. Two hours. If I wanted to leave after one, I could. If I wanted to stand by the snack table and not work the room, I could. The only rule was no performing.
It was — fine. Actually better than fine. I talked to maybe four people instead of twenty. I had one genuine conversation with someone I'd never really spoken to, and it turned out we had a shared thing neither of us knew about. I left early, around the one-hour mark, and nobody looked betrayed. The guilt I'd been bracing for never showed up.
The reading didn't turn me into an extrovert. It just showed me that the dread wasn't about the party — it was about the mask I thought I had to wear to it. Once I stopped wearing it, the party got a lot smaller and a lot less scary.
Anyway. I'll probably go next time too. But I'll stay for as long as I want and leave when I'm done, and I'll stop pretending that's a character flaw.
If there's a social event you've been dreading all week — a party, a dinner, a thing you feel obligated to perform at — try a reading. Three numbers. No account. It won't show up for you. But it might show you what you're really dreading, and whether it's the room or the mask.
FAQ
Q: Is it bad to skip office social events? A: Not categorically. But most of the time the event isn't the problem — the performance is. If you can show up as yourself instead of the "on" version, the event gets a lot lighter. And if you can't, a short appearance and an early exit is usually more than enough. See also: She Asked Me to Be Her Bridesmaid. My Mouth Said Yes Before My Brain Got a Vote. — same pattern of obligation and performance, just a much longer guest list.
Q: What if I'm genuinely an introvert and this stuff drains me? A: Then respect that. But there's a difference between "this drains me" and "I have to perform a fake version of myself." The first is an energy budget — leave early, recharge after. The second is a story about how the real you isn't welcome. The reading helped me see which one I was dealing with, and they need different fixes.
Q: How do I network if I hate small talk? A: Stop trying to work the room and just have one real conversation. Small talk is exhausting because it's low-stakes and high-effort. A single genuine conversation beats twenty minutes of surface chat, and it's actually how most connections happen. Quality over quantity isn't just a saying — it's a networking strategy.
Q: How does a reading help with social anxiety? A: It doesn't cure it. It separates the anxiety from the thing itself. I thought I was dreading a party. I was dreading the mask I wore to it. Once I could see the mask, I could choose not to wear it — and the dread shrank to a manageable size. The party was never the thing. The performance was.