adric | On Vox: Thoughts on 'Why I don't go [back] to @places [alone]'? Part Two

The Con brought all that up, actually a few before it when everyone started asking me if I was going. I've mulling on it since then and trying to find ways to characterize the behaviour. Many of the seem to begin with 'I don't' or 'I'm not the kind of sentient that' and these are constructions that I have been working to eliminate, at least in internal dialogue. So, I am in need of better explanations, or I shall have to try and alter the behaviour.

Con is probaly the largest and most terrifying such event/venue/opportunity. The immediate example is last night, at Single Malt Who, wherein I went (with sotto_voce) and met many interesting and fun people who I definitely share some mental space with. There were CS major jokes (Is polyamory in a closed group N-P complete? What the big O of your search algorithm) security dork jokes ( all Bruce Schneier joke should be written in three lines of Perl and delivered on a t-shirt to evade ITAR) and linguistics and grammar humour from several languagages. And we shared stories about international relations (I told mine about nearly failing to accidentally bribe a customs offical while simultaneous nearly missing my train out of Gar du Nord). And I experienced Veggie Tales .. which I can't easily describe, but there were good arguments for it being a force for good, and not evil. And of course there was talk of Con and OKCupid. Oh yes, and the there was Rowan Atkinson spoofing 1980s Dr Who. That was very funny indeed. And I got asked if I'd been to a Gathering¹ and encouraged to go to one, which (the recommendation) has happened before but it has been some time... and I've not been.

So, in the thrilling escape from Stone Mountain (neither really, sorry) later I had already formed some ideas. It really did seems like I had some common ground with those folk, and several of them were attractive on a least a couple levels. The coupling was pretty well established (married folk and the like), which I register as a discouragement. And my other strong feeling was that those people were all way too successful for me to hang out with. I mean they all seem to have finished school, or be in grad school, or be teaching school or otherwise have exciting work that may involve lots of travel. I would like to go back, and will if I'm able. Whether or not I'll be able to get myself back there ... completes the introduction to the question at hand.

¹: I dunno. Perhaps because I mentioned in a discussion of OKCupid algorithms that it practically only showed me witchy poly people. I don't think I displayed any inclination towards pagani. I mean I am a weirdo² and all... *shrug*

²: Bus Driver: "You girls be careful out in the park. There are weirdoes about." Witch: "Mister, we are the weirdoes!" -- The Craft

Originally posted on adric.vox.com

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Personally, I don't check resumes and work histories before becoming friends with someone.

And speaking as someone whose work does involve lots of travel, let me tell you: it ain't sexy or glamourous. I usually don't have enough advance notice to scout out interesting things in [city], or enough time to actually take part in them. I only got to have dinner with y'all when I was in Atlanta because I specifically scheduled an extra night there to accommodate that. I'm rarely able to do that.

Thanks for reading that drivel, and your input!

Fitting in is relative, but major differences in stage-of-life (folks with kids have little in common with folks without) and partner status (single vs. poly vs. committed) are obstacles for a shared good time. I am sympathetic to your observations, put mildly, even being actually on the other side of the situation.

When I have control over a social function, I endeavor to have a strong theme that bypasses casual mixing altogether or to have folks on the same side of these items.

And rather vaguely I would say that the venue in question does a good job with those criteria (all geeks, Dr Who, etc)

Oh, I dunno. "geek" is much more less descriptive than it used to be, and Dr. Who has been going on since the early 60's, so a huge, varied fan base. We may appear to have a lot in common but often don't -- the specific divisions I pointed out above really do separate a lot of people to the point of alienation, even in shared subcultures.

For what it's worth: in my observation you fit in very well. We'd be very happy to have you back any time. It's a slightly different crowd each time; some other folks who come regularly may be even more interesting to you.

Coupling: yes, there were a lot of established relationships in that room, but also some rather new ones. Just about everyone who was there was poly. And don't worry about success. This is not a group of people who define other people by what they make or anything like that. One of the guys who was there works in construction. And I'm just a broke podcaster, yet they still put up with me and drink my Scotch.

In any case, glad you Had Fun, and hope to see you again sometime.

This is the sort of rot that rattles my neural nets, and sometimes it helps to type it out. Thanks very much for reading through it and commenting.

I did rather deliberately not list the fellow who 'works for a living' as he seemed quite content with his work and he came and left with a sexy young woman. Thereby, he is found successful, and is otherwise a statistical outlier ;)

It all just makes me want to take some classes. Which ones, who from, and what to use for money are sadly all much less interesting questions.

I feel a need to point out that nearly half the people there came and left with sexy young women. Including you. (The slight majority were the sexy young women. And some of them left with sexy young women too.) >8->

True enough. I have been a bit vague on the details in my posties, due to natural tendencies and specific requests.

Nice choice of upic for this one, bastisch. :D

And several of the thanks were for the invite and re-invite. I meant to make that explicit before, fwiw.

And, and!

http://xkcd.com/314/

Requires this dependency, apparently ;)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1933

On Vox: Thoughts on 'Why I don't go [back] to @places [alone]'? Part Two

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Okay, noted

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Thanks, severally.

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