Immersion Day! Failure or Success? (The Event Begins)

(This post is connected to my previous post. AGAIN I didn't want to break this up, but I think AnonBlogs has a max word limit per each post)

Throughout this whole day, Metal has been such a fucking G. I was so pessimistic the whole day and he stayed right by me with optimism like an angel on your shoulder. Every time I sputtered out a “I wanna kill myself” or “I hope those bitches kill themselves” or a “I’m gonna kill those bitches”, he was still right there to give me hope. Until, he read that message with me and equally started getting pissed. At this point, I just wanted to sit in my car and cry from stress, exhaustion, and our hopelessness. BUT, I had no luxury to be wasting any time and had to gun it straight to the park to set up.

Since the park was so big, it was a bit confusing to find our reserved area, but nonetheless we find it and start unpacking the car. Although I did the best I could with the event, on paper, the event does look disappointing. There’s only food out with lame games and not really anything to do. Club President texts if I need help setting up. I answer that everything’s accounted for except for games or activities. I think this is when she helps pick up some of the pieces and calls me. It’s so weird. I had so much rage but right when I heard her voice, it just melted away. Her voice is very sweet and calming. Metal described her “hard to love but harder to hate”. Anyways, she said she would skip her class to come help me out, and came up of the idea of painting in the park. She went out to get supplies for everyone, leaving me and Metal to hold down the fort. The was an hour and a half left so I begin to have some hope.

Club President gets here pretty quick, and Metal and I help set up the tables to paint. She brought plenty of paint, brushes, and canvases. Just a few minutes later, another club officer (VP of Tech Meetings) arrives to help and he brought a friend. They helped set up the painting table and we all got to talking. Because this was a club event, I lied and told them that Metal had just applied to become a member. In reality, Metal is a college dropout. Lying comes really easy to me and is like second nature. When the people had questions about him or his major, I’d jump in to answer those questions. Everyone begins painting to help pass the time.

By 4 o’clock, no one was here. Miraculously, slowly, people start drifting in. Out of the 7 professionals that RSVPed, I think only 4 were here. Out of the club’s 50-ish members, I think only 20 came. Surprisingly, everyone was willing to paint. Someone painted a bee, another a skyline, and someone tried to replicate Van Gogh’s Starry Night. I wouldn’t call it so much of a success but everyone did genuinely have a great time. Everyone sat and talked together and ate the food. Thank god we didn’t play any other activities, because even through the shaded trees, the heat was abominable.

At one point, I saw Metal was standing away from the painting table and eating the food. I thought nothing of it but kept my eye out for him. Another time I glanced over, he was just sitting on the other table alone scrolling through his phone. It didn’t raise any alarms for me, but the scene looked a bit sad since he was by himself, so I left my painting spot and went over to ask him how he was. He immediately replied, “I feel like throwing up.” That got my heart racing a bit. Was it the food? Was leaving it out in the heat a bad idea after all? Did it all go bad? Should I make an announcement on it? I asked him why and he revealed, “I can’t keep lying. It’s making me feel sick.” Truthfully, it made me a bit relieved that it wasn’t the food, but at the same time, of course, it was a shock to me that he felt that way. It wasn’t like I sprung the idea of lying to everyone so instantaneously. We had discussed this plan when we were in the car driving to school and when we were driving around town. I thought he was okay with it. There was a moment after we said the lie to the group of people that he told me quietly that he wanted to reveal the truth to everyone, but I thought he wanted to tell everyone for shits and giggles so I shut it down. After he told me how he felt, I didn’t know how to react. I’ve never seen someone feel this way about telling a lie. I forgot what I said after and the conversation that followed, but (possibly due to awkwardness or sheer confusion) I do remember that I ended up going back to my spot at the painting table and I continued painting.

That time I was painting, I was just thinking of what to do. Maybe 10 minutes passed, and when I looked back, Metal was still sitting by himself. I came up to ask how he was again and if he still felt sick. He was, but he started to downplay it, saying he was probably just being overdramatic and that this is what he signed up for when I asked him to help me set up this event. I explained to him that feeling like this definitely wasn’t what he signed up for, and that if he’s truly feeling what he’s feeling, then he’s not being overdramatic. It was my fault for putting him in this position and I should’ve let him tell the truth if that was what he really wanted. He said that lying like this made him feel like such a fraud and it was even worse because people in the club were so nice to him. Before, we had thought no one would come to this event and we’d just need to keep the professionals busy for 2 hours. Now that there were a good number of people that showed up and they were all nice people, it made him feel guilty. I told him that if he wants to go ahead and tell everyone now the truth, then he’s more than free to do so, and I could help him with that if he wants. He says no, probably because it’d be more awkward with all the attention on him, so I came up with another idea.

“Let’s sit at that empty table over there and paint together. I’ll gather some canvases and brushes, and get a little of each of the paint colors on a paper plate so we have our own paint supply. Would you want to do that?”

He took a bite of the idea and we went to sit at the table together side-by-side. It was a bit quiet. After a while, I asked him how he felt. He explained that painting the repetitive blue strokes over the canvas was soothing and helped him keep his mind away from feeling sick. Then, one of the guys from the beginning that helped us set up the painting table earlier came to sit with us. He probably thought we were lonely and wanted to keep us company. This probably made it harder for Metal since those two got really fond of each other when they were setting up together, and seeing him coming up to us to keep us company made Metal feel even more guilty. I motioned Metal to take a look at my phone with a text written out, “Do you want me to tell him?” but Metal shook his head ‘no’. The friend was just sitting with us and scrolling through his phone but eventually picked up a conversation with Metal.

I guess the guilt was just eating him away so Metal exposes himself to the friend. The friend’s reaction to Metal’s confession probably gave Metal a good beam of support because the friend just started laughing and said, “Damn dude you should be an actor.” With the lies out of the way Metal and the friend were able to have a good conversation free of any pretenses. They really started getting into it; talking out shows they watched as a kid, the school campus, and movies they wanted to see. This really gave Metal the confidence he needed because out of no where, Metal just started going up to people on his own and saying, “Hey you know I’m not part of this club.” He’d get a reaction from the person and move on to the next , doing the same thing over and over until his conscience was wiped clean. This really is a different type of culture shock to me because I’m someone that doesn’t need to think twice about lying. This is what I mean when I say that Metal is seriously like on angel on your shoulder.

By the end of the event, Metal was feeling and looking so much better. When I was glancing at him before, his face was just stoic, but now he was talkative and all smiles. I apologized (real ones not just an empty ‘sorry bro’) to him multiple times and he kept reassuring me that it was all “water under the bridge”. He even tried to give me a hug after saying that, but because of how caught off guard I was, I made a repulsed “UGH” sound. Well if he didn’t want all the attention on him, it was sure as well too late now. Even the day after, he kept overthinking the hug and tried apologizing to me if he was acting like a creep. I told him it was seriously nothing and that I was just surprised, but he still felt bad.

Anyways, the event ended nicely and everyone helped clean up. One sad part was that I couldn’t eat any of the food I bought for the catering. At the beginning of the event, I was painting. By the time I was hungry, my fingers were covered in paint, so I was scared to eat and accidentally ingest some toxins/dirt. Then, since I was cleaning up the event, by that time, everyone had took home a portion of the leftovers so there wasn’t anything left. When people pack stuff for to-go, they’d pack it and leave right after. Since I had to stay to the very end, I couldn’t pack anything. If I packed it and left it in the car, the car’s like 100 degrees and the food would go bad. So, I just had to watch all the food disappear one by one.

In the end, the event turned out to go nicely. There were multiple hiccups that made me believe otherwise in the beginning but it got somewhat resolved. As nice as the event turned out, on the car ride back home, Metal and I both agreed that it was a complete miracle that turned out okay. I think I’m going to quit my position on the board. I hate the disorganized nature of how everything was handled. If this was an event where I could be in control of everything, including all the invites, it would make me feel more at peace since I know what needs to be done and what has been done. With planning events like these, I have to put in faith that everyone else can do their job. Immersion Day was a tiny event that only cost ~$650. At the end of the year, I’m in charge of an Awards Ceremony that has a budget of $3500. If the club can’t handle a sell event like this, I don’t want to wait around and see if they can pull their pants up by the end of the year.

TLDR: I’m a terrible friend that can’t do anything right.