Last night I had my book club.

I love my book club, Internet. I look forward to it ALL MONTH. The women in the book club are all lovely and sweet and friendly. They all have beautiful homes. They can all cook. It’s a lot of fun.

But oh. My. Lord. As soon as I step in the door, it’s like my tongue grows four sizes and I can’t say a single thing without it coming out weird.

This is not a chronic issue. When it comes to Work Events, I can be very smooth. I have learned how to Turn It On. I can be charming. I can be network-y. I am friendly and helpful and awesome.

But when it comes to book club…

I turn into some sort of bumbling idiot.

I don’t know what it is.

On the Internet, somehow, I manage to be mildly amusing. But apparently? Whatever minute level of funniness I possess (or have been misled to believe I possess by kindly commenters) does NOT translate into the spoken word.

Case in point: The other night, a series of silly slash annoying events conspired to make sure that my husband’s alarm didn’t go off yesterday morning… So I ended up driving him to work. Which meant I had to pick him up from work right before book club began. So he ended up dropping me off at book club and picking me up later.

When the girls asked how it came to be that my husband was chauffeuring me around, I started to tell them the – I thought – amusing tale of the previous night.

Somehow it ended up sounding like we were in some horrible fight!

We were not in a horrible fight. Did I roll my eyes a few times? YES. But I wasn’t mad in the least. (Poor guy – it all started with him getting home at 9:30 Tuesday night. His last rotation was a doozey.) (Doozey? Doozie? Doozee?)

And yet… The story came out all twisted.

Worse, as the words spilled out of me, and I realized that it sounded like I was berating my husband… my face started to get red. And I thought, “Oh lord, the girls are going to think I’m on the edge of tears here, I’m so mad at my husband!” And as soon as I thought that, I got more embarrassed… And my face got redder… And then I started to FEEL near tears because I was bungling everything so badly.

Now I fear that the book club girls believe we are on the edge of divorce.

(WE ARE NOT.)

The moral of the story: I should stick to writing. If people get the wrong impression, I probably won’t know. And even if they do and tell me about it, at least I won’t have to avert my eyes while sipping wine and frantically scouring my brain for a subject change.

But GAH Internet! It is so frustrating!

This book club night is supposed to be a carefree, relaxing night out with the girls. And it isn’t! It’s fraught with anxiety and awkward conversations and weird phrasing.

(I swear I forget how to SPEAK ENGLISH when I’m talking to these girls.) (I asked one girl, “So, do you guys ever think kids?” when I CLEARLY intended to say “So, do you guys ever think about having kids?”) (Tongue and brain – please COOPERATE.)

What is my deal?

And of course you know it’s going to keep getting worse. Because I’m going to start fretting about my social ineptitude before book club, which is going to make me all nervous and edgy, and I’ll automatically be even MORE awkward and clumsy. BAH.

I think for the future I need to set some ground rules for myself. Perhaps like…

1. Do not, under any circumstances, try to be funny.
2. Ditto for trying to be intellectual.
3. Pour everyone more wine.
4. Ask the other people lots of questions about themselves; keep self-referential talk to a minimum.
5. Roofies* (for them) and Xanax (for me).
6. Talk up the food.
7. Or the décor.
8. Or the neighborhood.
9. Go to the bathroom. A lot. But not so much that they think you are barfing. Or snooping through their medicine cabinets.
10. When in doubt, pet the cat and keep your mouth closed.

Any other grand ideas for transforming me from Dork of the Year into someone these girls will want to be around?

* You guys know I would NEVER condone roofies, right? Even during desperate times of horrendous social awkwardness.