Going places is hard, Part 2

Because you're dying to know (but mostly because I want to maintain this memory for the future), here's how things went at the holiday party described in the original post on this topic:

It was not pleasant. We arrived before everyone except one of my coworkers, M, and her brother's girlfriend, who will be P because I don't remember her name, and who felt extremely uncomfortable the whole time she was there. The table that was picked out was right next to the band and in a high-traffic area. We hung around there for a while, waiting for other people to show up. The minutes ticked by slowly, as I tried to make conversation with M and P. I hate parties, because they impel you to interact with strangers and casual acquaintances in unnatural ways unless you can attach to a large enough group of closer acquaintances and friends. If you can't do that, you either uncomfortably give in to the will of the party, or you uncomfortably resist. Either way, you lose. Anyone who claims to deal with these choices with equanimity is lying, autistic, or creepily extroverted.

Slowly, more of my coworkers and their dates arrived. We did the best we could to exchange greetings and converse while people tried to weave around us and the din grew. I don't remember this part of the event very well, but I'm pretty sure that our group slowly started to diffuse. At one point my boss's boss appeared and exhorted us to dance ("The Brazilians are here!"). She successfully coaxed one of my coworkers to the dance floor, but between my base reluctance and heavy pressure from Danielle, I stood pat. One regret that I will have for the rest of my life is not dancing with the Brazilians for at least a minute.

It was soon announced that dinner was ready (I think; again, my memory is a bit foggy here), and without a thought I scurried over to the buffet line, despite having consumed enough hors d'oeuvres to keep me rather full for an hour or so.

I didn't realize that I'd just consigned myself to eat dinner at the high-traffic, noisy-ass table we started at, while my preferred companions went to a much quieter table upstairs.

When I returned to the table where we'd all met, I discovered that my drink was put next to a spot that was occupied by a stranger, and the only people that I knew were Danielle, my boss, her date, and M and P from before. Everyone else was just gone.

Don't get me wrong, I like my boss and M, but there were a lot of non-ideal pieces to this setup:

1) I see my boss and M outside of work reasonably often, and am not lacking in social interaction with either of them.
2) I rarely/never see my other coworkers and their dates outside of work.
3) Danielle had never met any of my other coworkers before, with the exception of one, whom she met once at another unhappy work event. She scarcely had any opportunity to put names to my coworkers' faces and personalities, and my coworkers scarcely had any opportunity to get to know Danielle, whom I constantly talk about at work.
4) It was much less noisy upstairs. I have problems hearing people speak even when things are relatively quiet; at parties I can barely understand anything, and I end up doing a lot of shouting because I can't gauge how loud I need to be. Meanwhile, Danielle easily gets migraines from sensory over-stimulation.
5) P was still there, and growing increasingly uncomfortable.

I don't know if there was a realistic possibility that I could secure a place for Danielle and myself at the upstairs table, especially since we were already partially ensconced downstairs and Danielle already knew M and my boss, but I know that I would've had a better time if I were up there.

The stranger sitting next to me was nice, and it was good to sort of talk with my boss (who was the only person other than Danielle that I could hear). At some point during dinner P left and was followed by M--I don't know what ended up happening with them, exactly. It was a downright mediocre dinner. I wasn't hungry enough to enjoy or finish the big plate of food that I took from the buffet, and I didn't bother to get any dessert. 

The one good thing about the night was that after dinner we made our way to one of those joke-photo setups, where you pick out some silly accessories from a table and get your picture taken photo-booth style. Danielle and I found Catwoman and Batman masks, so we got pictures taken as Catman and Batwoman. It was a good way to take the edge off the night.

Eventually we found our way to the bus to take us back to the office parking lot. It was a pity that we couldn't have left an hour or so earlier, just so that we could spare ourselves some of the boredom and noise. And so that we could maybe get to sleep before midnight.

The bus ride wasn't too eventful, and it was blog-free because I was too mentally pooped out. One guy talking about sports with a medium-strength Boston access used the word "bogus" about fifty times, though, and I came close to just making some kind of snarky post about that.

Going places is hard. You always have to spend at least a little energy, but you don't always have fun. I guess I have this memory, at least.