We’re going to a party tonight.  By boat, of course.  Everyone will arrive by boat.  It’s the only way.  By 7:00 pm there will be a flotilla of small boats rafted in clumps against anything that floats – a dock, an anchored buoy, a couple of trees near the shore…whatever.  People will be dressed in layers with the top layer likely a logger shirt or a Gore-Tex jacket.  Under that will be another logger shirt.  Some wag may show up in a Hawaiian shirt (there’s always one).  It will be fun.  Nice.  Community.  There will be the usual chit-chat, catching up with others that you haven’t seen in a year or so (since  the last party) and there will be the usual avoidances with those currently in the doghouse.  Hatfields and McCoy stuff.

I like everyone.  Well, there are a few McCoys for me, too.  But I am not keen on going even if I loved everyone.  I have never liked parties.  Hate’ em, actually.  I like dinner parties (mostly because I like dinner) because I can actually have a real conversation.  But chit chat eludes me.  I don’t ‘do’ weather.  I don’t care about the latest appliance.  Smartphone apps are not interesting.  I am ‘beyond’ real estate prices.  And, sadly, I am too old to flirt.  Being ugly was always a challenge to flirting but one I overcame because I had a motive (never mind).  But now I lack motive and all the women wear logging shirts anyway. Hell, some of them are loggers!

So, except for adding a little mortar to the walls of building community, what is the point of the party?  For me?  Not too much.  OK, there’s the dinner.  So, I’ll go.

My friend and neighbour and I have a rule.  We like each other.  A lot.  But visits can be no longer than three hours.  That’s the limit.  We start to fidget at the 2-hour-and-fifty-minute stage.  And we leave ten minutes later.  Even when visiting each other.  In fact, I raised the topic to him at the last ‘visit’.

“Hey, ya know the three hour rule we have….?”

“Wanna change it?  Say, two and half?”

“Deal!”

“So, your time’s up.”

“Great!  See ya.”

We’ll likely remain friends for the rest of our lives although – near the end – he and I will visit for no more than fifteen minutes.

Here’s the funny part – most of the guys going to the party will be striving for the 3 hour rule, too.  The older ones are aiming for two.

Go ahead – write to me.  Tell me I am wrong.  I dare you.