Ceilidh A.K.A Irish speed dating

Generally, as a human being, I try my utmost to avoid any event in life which could cause social embarrassment to befall me. But tonight, for lack of anything interesting to do, I decided to tag along with Phil and JD to Irish Dancing.
I followed P and JD sheepishly down to the cath soc, where we were led out of the university and into nearby Claverton's village hall.
Now, I haven't been in one of these halls since I was yeigh high, for birthday parties and confirmation sessions. As soon as I entered, I could almost imagine being back in junior school, pulling up a stool, with a handful of other kids and listening to biblical stories (or dancing around to awful cheesy songs and eating jelly and ice cream whilst playing stick the tail on the donkey).
However, this time, there was a band at one end of the hall, strumming out a fairly Irish beat as we looked around to size up the potential others we would be jigging with. To my surprise, (most of) the girls there were actually very good looking. The same could possibly be said for the guys, but seeing as I was there, I dragged the average look score down to a -3 (on a scale of 1-10).
Now really cheesy scripted jokes aside, the band, 'Haywire' were pretty good. The violinist I thought was amazing. I may be slightly biased, as I love the sound of violins, but still.
(Personally, 'Hayday' may have been a better name for their band as they were quite.... not young)
If dancing awkwardly in a room full of a whole bunch of random people you have never met wasn't daunting enough, being partnered up with a member of the opposite sex and then made to hold hands, dance (and try desperately to remember their name, even though you will switch partners in about 10 seconds and then have to try remember their name) whilst simultaneously not stepping on peoples feet, REALLY takes the biscuit (or did Phil take the biscuit *checks for a trail of crumbs leading to Phil's room*). It was basically speed dating for people who like to dance strangely to almost Irish music.

For my £7 entry fee, I also received a ploughman's dinner which consisted of bread, cheese, crisps, salad and some cherry tomatoes (yuck), and optional relishes and pickles (also yuck).
JD, saw thon (Don't say I never try to learn stuff) tomatoes as small spherical projectiles capable of being juggled, and subsequently I tried this too. Now, way back when, my mother always told me not to play with my food, and I gleefully obeyed. Oh, how wrong I was! Playing with your food may be bad table manners, but boy is it fun!

During this brief interlude of food, JD(being JD), managed to get talent scouted by the violinist (or something like that). Me (being me), came to the conclusion that some people are just innately awesome and opportunities like this are akin to me receiving junk mail in the post.

*warning* - From this point on the blog descends into the inner workings of my mind and possibly a side of me you would rather not read about... but I need somewhere to write this stuff .

Also at this point in time, I made another profound development in my cognitive processes: I am a depressive social leech. On my own, I am nigh on always depressed about something, around other people I can mask this (not particularly well) but enough that a smile will make it seem that nothing is wrong. This however leads me to be quiet and generally an unwilling participant in most social interactions.

The last few weeks I tried to change this, by emulating someone who is by defacto 'awesome'. This seemed to work, I was meeting new people, making new friends, learning new things and then I realised that no matter what I do I will always be me. Therefore, intrinsically boring, unhappy, unfulfilled and eternally lonely. Human contact is something I rarely experience, and to see the disgust on peoples faces (peoples initial reactions are clearly visible for a fraction of a second before they think about covering them up) when forced into holding hands with me is something that I may be projecting onto others (or not), but is still something that causes alot of pain.

Faith and hope are not things that I posses in vast amounts; I have little hope, and I have little faith, in myself and in others. Without either of these, chances are slim that I will ever meet anyone willing to overlook physical flaws, and with which I can connect on a deeper level.

In conclusion, this is why I will never go speed dating....