My Lack of Will-Power

I do not have the will-power to give people the cold shoulder.  It's tremendously effective, if being insulting, spiteful, and boorish is what you're aiming for, but I just don't have the will-power to pull it off myself.  The best individual I've ever seen at this stunt was my ex-mother-in-law.  Honest to gawds, she was so good at pretending I wasn't there, I almost wondered myself a few times (maybe I'm not really sitting here in the same room with this woman, maybe I'm hallucinating). 

I tried it, this cold-shoulder tactic, like once when I had to go to my ex-husband's aunt's funeral, but it is *So Hard* for me to do this.  There I was, in the middle of enemy territory, surrounded by oodles of people who either despised me or didn't know me, and I had to keep saying to myself, "Don't look!...Don't do it...no, no, no. Look at that spot on the wall, keep your eyes on the bouquet, look at your plate-- head down...Don't look over there!"  It was awful.  I'm really lousy at this type of thing.  I think I just basically don't understand it.

I'm just too damn curious to ignore anyone.  I want to look at them; I want to ask questions; I want to know how life's been treating them, what they're up to, how they're doing.  I'm amazed at the way some, ummm, what should we call them?..."Ignorers"?...Can suddenly, completely, without warning, just cut someone out of their lives, never to hear from them ever anymore.  Not me, uh-huh.  By gawds, if I know you, I'll be thinking about you until the cows come home.