1) It makes your imagination run positively wild because you have no one to play with. (see previous blog posts - clearly this carries on into adulthood)
2) You have no clue how to deal with people your age until you're about..... 30.*
3) You feel shell-shocked around groups of large people. (in some cases, this may disappear during adulthood if you're lucky)
4) You are developmentally slow in learning about things like sarcasm, ganging up, and other social rites of passage.
* Thirty is my magical age in which I believe all the mysteries of life are suddenly revealed.
I decided a long time ago that as an only child, you can turn out one of two ways. You can either love people and want to be around them constantly (North Pole of only childism), or you can truly value your time alone and want to be around others only some of the time or rarely (South Pole of only childism). The more only children I meet, the more I find this to be true.
Several years ago Lainey, Kevin and I formed the OC squad, which stands for Only Child Squad. Since we spent a lot of time paling around together, we thought it only appropriate that we should create a name for ourselves - being a group entirely comprised of only children. We appointed Kevin president, because he is by far the brattiest only child among us.
Side note - if two only children marry, a ferret dies.
Lainey and Kevin are on the aforementioned North Pole - loving to be around people all the time. I am all by my lonesome at the South Pole, clinging on to alone time and being anti-people all by myself. And yes, I realize this is just a circle cut in half and that Poles don't really apply the way I've drawn it, but just go with it, okay?
You may be thinking, "Geez, how many times have I talked to Mary at a party? How many of those times has she been thinking that?" I'm good at being a people person, is the thing. I've been a people person in every job I've ever had, and that's the issue. I'm so actively a people person all day at any job I've ever had, and because of that I have absolutely no spare time for it anymore in my social life. That's why I limit my outings these days! Plus there's the only child factor.
So it's not you, it's me. It's the predestination to one of the Poles of only childism. Someone has to be at the South Pole, and by pure genetic roulette that someone happens to be me. I probably still love you and stuff. Probably.
I'm fiercely loyal to my friends, but if you're some random that happens upon my conversation....you should probably take a look at my Pole diagram.
However, regardless of who you are - if you want to come to my house, sit in a corner with your laptop / whiskey and diet coke and watch the same episode of Flapjack with me at separate ends of the room and then, once finished, participate in a witty banter involving its thought-provoking existential plot lines - well, come on over! I'll be waiting.
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