i'm neither single nor a drinker but i spent most of my life single and not drinking. it never occurred to me that, say, going to a bar was a likely place to meet friends, especially since back then everyone was smoking and i have asthma. a lot of fun, i was! i made some friends at school, at work, on my street, wherever i happened to be living, and not a whole lot at one time, usually -- but the ones i made tended to last a lifetime. one of my best friends i met while we were both working on a play, outside of any other organized setting (not a school play, for example). i just answered an ad in the free paper. not into theatre? there are so many things in which one can be involved that involve gathering. that wasn't even why i was doing it. i had been a theatre major until i switched to film and i was just doing anything i could get to do, paid or unpaid -- yeah, paid, who was i kidding? always unpaid! but it's amazing what a broad spectrum of people you meet. if you go expecting nothing but the activity, the work, the play, whatever it is, you get your satisfaction from that and you also get to hang out with human beings. once in a while another human being is happy to hang out with you, too!

as for the insecurity, i reeked of it. i was painfully shy, i was. i got over that quickly when i ended up teaching in japan. i think that's an extreme measure to take if you aren't otherwise planning to go, but the thing is, laugh at yourself, take a deep breath, don't expect anything, and go out where people are doing stuff, do the stuff, don't worry about their liking you, and some people will like you just for that!

g