Yesterday I studied hard, really hard. In fact, most of my morning was purely about studying, only taking a break to take my dogs for a walk in the rain. Poor things are so bored, they haven’t been out for about a week now because of the weather, so I decided I really needed to take them out and give them something interesting to do. They idn’t seem the least bit bothered by getting wet actually, but back to my story…

I decided that if I could finish the rest of that chapter in my text book (side note – I’m studying forensics, and was learning about fires and arson) that I would reward myself by going to the movies. I had wanted to see the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1 for a while, but unfortunately Mat isn’t a fan of HP (he has seen a total of 15mins of all HP movies combined – he keeps falling asleep instead). Not many people I know actually are, and those that were had already seen the movie. I decided that rather than force Mat, I would challenge myself to go to the movies alone. Given that I’m incredibly self conscious (but great at hiding it/ignoring it/eating my way through it) I kept rethinking the decision, but eventually insisted that I had to do it, more for the character building than anything else.

I finished the section on arson in my text book with an hour to spare before the movie started. Rather than continue to think about going by myself I went online and booked the ticket. Having already paid for it there was no way I was going to let myself waste the money, thus I had no choice but to go. I had tricked myself successfully!

I arrived at the cinemas to discover that it was insanely packed. I had forgotten it was school holidays, as well as a public holiday, not to mention that it was raining. Perfect cinema weather, as also discovered by the rest of the Sunshine Coast. Thankfully, because I had booked online I was able to skip the queue and get my ticket almost immediately, but not before fighting my way through the crowd to get to the queue area in the first place. At one point a man barged past me, smashing into my hip and sending me flying, before turning around and glaring at me like I had hit him! I resisted the urge to snap and just let it go. It just wasn’t worth it.

Eventually I had my ticket, and after looking at the line up for popcorn and snack food I decided I would much rather go without. I happily discovered that the billion people in the foyer weren’t going to see the same movie as I was, as they were all lined up for one of the cinemas on the other side (thank goodness for a 12 cinema complex). I walked in, found my seat (again, thank goodness for allocated seating and the ability to choose a seat online) where I found I was at the end of a row filled with a family. Feeling uncomfortable again about being alone, I made an unnecessary joke to the parents about being “the loner at the end”, and I’m pretty sure they really didn’t care. In fact, I’m pretty sure that just reinforced my “strange” status – not only was I seeing a movie alone, but I also made bad jokes. WEIRDO!

Long story short I really enjoyed the movie, and I can’t wait for the second part. Yet I still didn’t like the feeling as I left the cinema alone, not being able to discuss the movie with anyone else. I like being able to walk out and chat about it, find out if there was anything I missed etc. Imagine walking out of Inception alone, one of the most brain-boggling movies I’ve seen in a long time. I think my brain would purely explode from not being able to speak out loud what I was thinking!

I’m proud of myself for going though. Maybe one day I will be confident enough where going alone doesn’t bother me in the least, and I don’t feel that need to have someone else there. I suppose I’ll have to go again by myself until it doesn’t feel weird. I’ll also need to make sure it’s not a movie that Mat wants to see, otherwise he might not understand when I say “no, you’re not allowed to come, I want to go by myself”.

Now just to try and build on this confidence thing…