Group Dynamics

Over the past few days I have been in quite a few gatherings of people. It's pretty amazing how differently groups interact and how I as an individual react in a group.

On Friday I went with Christine to this social group in Sac. It was called the Red Balloon Club and Christine saw it on - you guessed it - craigslist. Okay, maybe you shouldn't have guessed it, but if you knew her, you may know about her obsession of reading the craigslist personals. Anyway, within the personals was an ad for this group. Apparently, there was quite a criteria list to join - including being physically active and liberal, but it's not necessarily a singles thing, but it allows like minded people to get together and have some conversation.

This is something that I would NEVER do by myself. And I mean never. In fact when we arrived at the Cafe Bernardo at Capitol and 28th, I saw the red balloons in the patio and looked at Christine as if to say, "um, we are not really going to join those people, right?" But alas, she is much more adventurous than I and she just approached the 5 people at the table and said, "hey, I'm Christine." I don't think the organizer guy, Dar was happy that she brought a friend, because apparently that ruins the group dynamic. But for the most part we did converse as a group. At the start I had a dialogue with the weird chick next to me about musical theatre and Christine spoke to Dar about how he puts these gatherings together. There seemed to be an interesting conversation about Italy going on across the table, but I didn't want to rude and end my conversation quite yet. Since Christine and I were new our conversation became who we were and where we were from. Dar was not happy with that, so he jumped in and steered us to talk about religion and philosophy. In fact, I noticed that he was unhappy and anxious most of the evening. Around 10, Christine and I finally headed back to her place. One of the cooler girls whispered if we would return as we were saying our goodbyes. It's certainly out of the ordinary, but I certainly would have done it.

The night before, on Thursday, I got together with a Six Degree group of friends at a beautiful bar/restaurant in Sac. I worked with Rachel last year at the State Fair and she invited Gina, a teacher she works with in Davis. I just happened to meet Gina at Christine's house. Then Rachel invited her friends Graham and Mario. And since Tim knows these guys, too he joined us this time around. And Christine called me as I was in the causeway, so I invited her too. The alcohol was flowing that night and I spent more money than usual out. Since I subbed for Kerry Mehling's classes and she paid me what she makes rather than what I make, I got a big fat check for $600 that afternoon. So, buying the first round was not a big deal. We got loud and crazy and I saw Christine sitting there unamused. It just made me think about how groups operate. It may have been just the booze talking, but I certainly felt more comfortable around people I know and this group in particular I can let my hair down and be completely silly.

This also makes me think about my 2 hip hop classes and how different they are. The first is much more reserved in their movements, but more outspoken with there opinions and suggestions. The second is just the opposite. In fact, I have a few really great dancers in that second class and they push the others to be better. It certainly makes my job a lot easier.

And now that I switched from being an Introvert to being Extrovert in one of the Meyers-Briggs type tests on Facebook, I have to get out of my little apartment and out into the group.