A meal of butterflies

Once again I’ve left a big extended-family dinner feeling exceedingly melancholy.  I’ve read that some say the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is not that an introvert dislikes company, but that an extrovert is energised by it, while an introvert finds it tiring.  Four hours of superficial chatter was not only tiring, but left me feeling profoundly lonely.  And honestly, I don’t know how the others managed it.  These don’t seem to be especially superficial people. 

Yet they seem to be happy with it.  They leave smiling.  And I leave like a starving person who’s been looking at food for hours, with none to eat. 

I hate this talk, I really do.  I read what I’ve written and it reminds me of men who’ve never learnt to manage their emotions.  It’s coarse and raw and crude.  Why the desperation?  I wouldn’t be surprised if it shows; if it scares people away.  It is embarrassing to feel like this.  No, I am not some misfit.  Yes, I’m told my social skills are just fine! 

But I have never acknowledged human closeness as a genuine inborn need.  I still do not.  It’s only a desire to me.  And so it puzzles me that I should crave it so strongly.  Meanwhile I am just as puzzled that others would happily let an opportunity for closeness go by; would spend it prattling about the details of their job or their last trip.  Don’t they realise how precious that chance is?  How rare? 

What is so different in me, that I am pained by the lack of something others have no need for?  Or am I simply being preposterous in hoping to find it at an extended-family dinner?