Was that weird? or is it just the social anxiety talking?

This is the time of year when my brain chemistry is least cooperative, and today something happened that happens every year. 

There was a candidate interviewing for an open position in our department, and she said something about the back-to-back scheduling. Academic interviews are intense: every half-hour is scheduled, all day long. In a 28-ish hour period you eat three of your four meals with interviewers. It's exhausting. So I answered in a way that was intended to be sympathetic, something like, "Yeah, when I left the building at the end of my interview day I just wanted to go sit in a dark and quiet closet for 20 minutes." (I even blogged about that feeling at the time -- #5 at the link.) Did I really get a raised eyebrow from one of my colleagues when I said that, or did I imagine the raised eyebrow? I kept talking in hopes of smoothing things over if I had made them weird. "Maybe that sounds a little odd," I said, "but it's such a long day of being ON-ON-ON. I hope you have a peaceful evening."

The candidate immediately started talking about how she herself has an affinity for dark and quiet places, and the colleague who might or might not have raised an eyebrow followed up with a story about her experience in a sensory deprivation tank. So probably they were not thinking to themselves, "that was such a bizarre thing to say." Or at least maybe they were not thinking that. 

See, this is where I get stuck at this time of year. Am I just having a social anxiety flare, even though I am only being my usual amount of quirky and my colleagues are accustomed to it? It is a little quirky to talking about wanting to go sit in a closet by yourself, I get that. But it is also possible that my recalcitrant brain chemistry is causing me to be a little less tuned in to conversational signals, with the result that I am saying more weird stuff. 

Whether I am actually being weirder or just worrying more about being my usual level of weird, it is a reliable contributor to the pre-solstice blues. I get into these social anxiety tailspins: that was so weird! why did you say that? the candidate is not going to want to work with people who like to hide in closets! adults do not hide in their closets! no one could tell it was a joke! that was so weird! why did you...? Etc. 

Do you do this too? Tell me you do this too sometimes.