Being center but not central

So I've been wondering how I can feel so introverted sometimes and seem so extroverted at other times. I like being around people even if they make me uncomfortable and drain me. I doubt I'm a social masochist, so here is my other explanation.

Being the center of attention can be great. When I tell a story I am at the center of attention. Rules are established. I am doing my job as storyteller to be quick and entertaining. Others are doing their job to listen and chime in when appropriate. I am the center, but I am not central. The story is central, the audience is central, but I just happen to be in the midst. This is a comfortable and satisfying place. One can receive praise and love without fear of making any damaging mistakes.

But, say someone gives me a gift and they wait to watch me open it. Or someone wants to celebrate something I've done by throwing me a party. Suddenly I have to not only be proud of whatever it is I've done (graduated, destroyed all evil, survived another year, whatever) but I have to appear excited and grateful for their efforts on my behalf as well. Suddenly I am awash in pressure. My reaction matters to the person and a poor one might mean a poor relationship in the future. I am being made not only the center of attention, but central. With little context I have to figure out the appropriate things to do to maintain social status quos. It is uncomfortable and scary.

Now, this happens to everyone, but we should probably stop doing it to each other. At least I think so. (I recognize I'm being selfish here). Questions out of the blue, unexplained or half-forgotten or empty or unloved traditions, and most expectations make people the center of attention and central to the situation. Unless no one cares about the outcome, these things rarely go very well.

Blended

I'm dried-out Alton Brown ground beef.
A congealed mass of chuck this and loin that,
kosher salt and pork fat.

Why? How?
What blended me up?
What's the goal?
Am I the sacrificial foal?
The ungodly hole?
The warning shoal?
The ungodly whole?
The hearth's coal?
The potter's unmade bowl?
Cause I sure do feel young, empty, shallow, legion, brittle, and lumpy.

Was it the depressed child, too young to have a sense of self to lose? Or the middle-class public education that tried so hard to convince me that I was special, just like everyone else? Or the church rooms and classrooms that taught me to treat everyone equally and well because they were just as valuable as me, and if I could do that then I'd be better? Or the society that emblazoned successful people into my eyes, people who by themselves would make an average person but together form the person, just enough that when I look in the mirror or memory bank I can see their mutant superimposed over myself making all the right decisions and comebacks while looking good?

I walk home in flip-flops and a hoodie. Sleet soaked my socks through the hole in my sneakers, guaranteed to make a kid run faster and jump higher. I prefer cold feet to wet ones, so I'm stuck with the annoying sound of one hand clapping beneath me.
I want to hang my head down to avoid accidentally catching the eye of someone I know and become further embarrassed. I want to raise my head up of to make sure I don't walk into anything and become further embarrassed. My indecision embarrasses me.

But I make it home. I always do. Sometimes I wish I didn't, so I'd have to change.