The first production of my boyfriend’s work that I ever saw was a one-act “oratorio” called “Poodle Rescue,” performed in a Minneapolis theater. I had listened to it on CD long before, so I knew what to expect from the show, but never having been involved with anyone in professional theater, I didn’t suspect what would come afterward. At the reception, Rob, a celebrity, was mobbed by admirers, and I, an extraterrestrial, was shoved into a far corner, where I played a humdrum tournament of solitaire on my PDA until it was time to leave.

I wasn’t missed.

Flash forward two years: I’ve developed my theater legs. At the performances this past weekend, I hobnobbed with the movers and shakers of Minneapolis and consumed too many carbohydrates.

It’s a beautiful thing, feeling wanted. I suppose the little voice in my head whispering that they’re sucking up to me to stay on Rob’s good side will eventually fade. (Or switch back to providing step-by-step instructions for staging elaborate homicides of people who cut me off in traffic.)

As a rule, I’m uneasy in crowds because my mind is distracted by pinpointing who the Republicans are, but this is not to say that I don’t usually function well on my own. In fact, despite my ingrained misanthropy, I make friends easily and could chat with strangers all night long. So the mystery is not where my social confidence vanished to, but why it abandons (or, I hope, abandoned, past tense) me only in situations where Rob is on his home turf.

Just add it to the list of disorders I’m paying my therapist to shake her rattle at.