It was worse than I thought.

Follow up to my inappropriate Xmas party behavior

I am not laughing anymore. Now, I feel terrible. Previously I wrote:

At my friends Christmas party this year, I was standing at the buffet table. Right nearby three men were chatting when a preadolescent boy tried to dash by. One man stopped and remarked at how tall he had grown. What are you, five three, he asked. The boy nodded and I was struck with disbelief. This kid was clearly at least 4 inches shorter than I am so pointing my finger I interject, exclaiming loudly, "ABSOLUTELY NOT! These is no way he is five three. I am five three so he can't be that tall." Instantly I caught my faux pas as the men quickly averted their eyes. "Sorry. That was inappropriate," I say as I excuse myself retreating to another part of the room.

When I relayed this story to my friend, the hostess of the party, her face sank a little. At the time, just minutes after the event, I thought her expression might have been a sign of empathy for ME. Like she was thinking, "Oh poor Aly and her social mishaps..." Another possibility I considered was that she was experiencing concern that I was too loud and disturbing the other guests. The truth is I had no idea the madnitude* of my social gaff.

It turns out that the subject of my story is not a preadolescent boy. He is 14! In addition, his parents have been struggling to figure out why he is not growing. There is no way I could have known this but it makes the faux pas so much worse. It's not so funny anymore.

How can anyone separate my behavior from me? My words sound cruel so doesn't that make me a cruel person?

For now I think I will stay home and not inflict myself on the world.

*Madnitude was a typo that I decided to leave uncorrected because the feeling that my mistakes are compounding, intensifying in frequency and severity may eventually lead to complete madeness.