Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor

Sometimes I need to be hit over the head in order for the penny to drop.

Returning home yesterday evening I bumped in to Helen and David, my neighbours who were just leaving to go out. It's the first time I've seen them for a while. Previously in the day I'd also been thinking that I really ought to get out of the house more, and that I should probably make an effort to meet and befriend more people.

Helen and David invited me to join them - they were just headed out to a local pub just a few minutes walk away. And I said no. It's largely an instinctive reaction when it comes to pub invitations. I have little regard for the whole "pub experience" - they tend to noisy, crowded and smoky, all the more so in the city center on a Friday evening. More often than not I honestly reply that I'd rather curl up at home with a good book (my social graces need work, I admit) That said it bothers me a little that my first thought in the face of such an invite is to run and hide.

Fortunately David and Helen didn't take my initial refusal at face value and gave me time to reconsider, and eventually change (I still required some persuasion) my stance. And lo, it turned out to be an enjoyable night, in a pub that wasn't too crowded or smoky, and where the music was kept enough to make conversation possible. It was a good night all in all, and we've promised to do it again soon.

There may be something to this whole "socialising" malarky after all...