Antisocial breakthrough!

This has been an unbelievably  ambitious evening for a complete introvert. You must understand that by introvert, I mean not having seen anyone socially since before both my children got out of school in June, and that last social interaction was to watch my friend feed her horse, wheel a barrow of fresh dung to the drop off point, and make idle chit chat until we were all too thirsty and too dangerously bitten up by stable flies to stay another minute. The hard work made conversation easy, and my daughter helped fill the spaces where I would have found myself tongue tied, yet I had been nervous even that day back in late May when we went to learn Gypsy's feeding routine.
Today was a grand step. Today I took my daughter to a friend's house with the intention of dropping her off and coming home to spend the evening in  bed watching  "Lockup" and "House Hunters International," but I ended up staying with my German friend and turning small talk into conversation which included everything from Hitler in his Bunker,  to the chances of "The Cure" playing at Austin City Limits. Every ten minutes I intended to leave so that I could pick Abbegayle up later, but the conversation moved along easily, as it does when discussing the banality of men who simply don't understand quality women, and besides, the background entertainment of eighth grade boys singing surprisingly energetic and bold rounds of karaoke with both male and female voice parts, really made leaving an impossibility.
My daughter called me from the depths of the host teen's bedroom, where a group of friends were watching "Inception" and gasping at the confusing dream sequences. She called me from two rooms away. This is normal behavior for my daughter. We can "chat" in the same room, so a call from the same house did not seem too odd. The result was a deal for a friend's father to drive her home at the conclusion of the movie an hour and a half later, but I had already spent over four hours at my friend's house, actually socializing. My head was pounding, my face hurt from smiling, I felt emotional exhaustion, and I left with the feeling that I could not face this again for quite some time because my anxiety level was making my lips tingle as I put my car into motion to drive home.
An introvert's breakthrough, but a reminder that I prefer my solitary ways.