Sep. 5th, 2011 01:34 pm
Confessions of a budding agoraphobe
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textualdevianceSo, another year's Geek Mardi Gras* is basically done. Holing back up in the hotel room for the rest of the day and then flying back home tomorrow afternoon.
Even though there were good moments, this year's fest felt markedly different to me on a lot of levels, and I'm actually in kind of a crappy mood. Part of it's physical. The heat/humidity are killing me, and I picked up some sort of digestive bug yesterday (bleh,) but there's also a mental component to it, too.
Like most folks, I dislike crowded, noisy spaces, and big cons like this are quite awful on that count. But I'm also finding that I dislike meatspace and dealing with strangers in general. Even strangers with whom I theoretically have a lot in common, like I would here (or in queer spaces.)
I still enjoy going out sometimes, but only if there's a central purpose for it. Travel, for instance, I do because I want to see new places, and I do occasionally enjoy seeing a first-run movie in a theater, or doing a bit of retail therapy. But for the most part, if I don't have to go out and deal with masses of people I don't know, I'd rather not.
And I most certainly don't want to do so for the purposes of socialization.
Supposedly, a lot of people get laid at cons. I'm sure that's true. I'm equally sure that would never, ever happen for me. For the same reason it would never happen in any other crowded, impersonal space. First, because the initial interaction is purely physical, and ain't no way someone's going to spy me across the room and think, "daym, I gotta get me some o' that!" But also because of the flip side: Even if people turn my head (and they do), I have no desire to actually get any closer to them unless I know a heck of a lot more about them than a noisy party would ever allow for.
It's not just about getting laid, either. I have the same issue with making friends. Unless I can actually talk to someone and find out who they are, there's no point.
Muggle space, of course, is awful for me on this count. Even living in queer geektopia, the chances of finding someone with whom I have enough in common to be friends is next to nil in a general public place. But specifically queer and geek spaces aren't much better. For one, neither community is a monolith, so there's no guarantee of actual affinity there just for sharing a top-level label. But the same thing that plagues noisy, crowded muggle spaces plague queer and geek ones, too: it's simply impossible to pick out a few people from an enormous crowd, and have any hope of truly getting to know them.
I get that this works for a lot of people. Muggles, in particular, basically never have to worry about whether a random stranger is going to be offended by who and what they are, so they can strike up a convo with someone at a bus stop and have a reasonable chance of further quality interaction. And for others, merely knowing that another person in the crowd is in one's general affinity group is enough. (Still others, of course, are perfectly content to let physical attraction lead the way in terms of finding people to hook up with--sexually or otherwise.)
But me? No way. I need a meeting of minds, not a meeting of bodies, and therefore I'd much rather do that initial interaction in a way that highlights the former instead of the latter.
If I had to rely only on meeting people in physical space, I'd never have any friends, and I wouldn't be married, either (M and I met on a BBS, after all.) So why on earth would I want to waste a bunch of time trying to pick out that one person in a crowd of hundreds who might actually like the real me when I can do that kind of filtering in a much shorter amount of time, and from the comfort of my own computer?
This is not to say that I want to conduct friendships or relationships entirely online. I'd much rather have M within poking distance than stuck in his office across town, and anyone who knows me knows I'm a major cuddle slut with the people I love. It's just that when it comes to the initial butt-sniffing dance, I'd much rather do it in a way that lets me instantly sort for affinity, allows for actual conversation, and allows me to get to know a person instead of just a physical body.
Life's too damned short to waste any of it sifting through haystacks to find a few needles. So sue me if I'd rather bust out the metal detector and make that process a hell of a lot quicker and less painful.
*DragonCon. As opposed to SDCC, which is Nerd Prom.
Even though there were good moments, this year's fest felt markedly different to me on a lot of levels, and I'm actually in kind of a crappy mood. Part of it's physical. The heat/humidity are killing me, and I picked up some sort of digestive bug yesterday (bleh,) but there's also a mental component to it, too.
Like most folks, I dislike crowded, noisy spaces, and big cons like this are quite awful on that count. But I'm also finding that I dislike meatspace and dealing with strangers in general. Even strangers with whom I theoretically have a lot in common, like I would here (or in queer spaces.)
I still enjoy going out sometimes, but only if there's a central purpose for it. Travel, for instance, I do because I want to see new places, and I do occasionally enjoy seeing a first-run movie in a theater, or doing a bit of retail therapy. But for the most part, if I don't have to go out and deal with masses of people I don't know, I'd rather not.
And I most certainly don't want to do so for the purposes of socialization.
Supposedly, a lot of people get laid at cons. I'm sure that's true. I'm equally sure that would never, ever happen for me. For the same reason it would never happen in any other crowded, impersonal space. First, because the initial interaction is purely physical, and ain't no way someone's going to spy me across the room and think, "daym, I gotta get me some o' that!" But also because of the flip side: Even if people turn my head (and they do), I have no desire to actually get any closer to them unless I know a heck of a lot more about them than a noisy party would ever allow for.
It's not just about getting laid, either. I have the same issue with making friends. Unless I can actually talk to someone and find out who they are, there's no point.
Muggle space, of course, is awful for me on this count. Even living in queer geektopia, the chances of finding someone with whom I have enough in common to be friends is next to nil in a general public place. But specifically queer and geek spaces aren't much better. For one, neither community is a monolith, so there's no guarantee of actual affinity there just for sharing a top-level label. But the same thing that plagues noisy, crowded muggle spaces plague queer and geek ones, too: it's simply impossible to pick out a few people from an enormous crowd, and have any hope of truly getting to know them.
I get that this works for a lot of people. Muggles, in particular, basically never have to worry about whether a random stranger is going to be offended by who and what they are, so they can strike up a convo with someone at a bus stop and have a reasonable chance of further quality interaction. And for others, merely knowing that another person in the crowd is in one's general affinity group is enough. (Still others, of course, are perfectly content to let physical attraction lead the way in terms of finding people to hook up with--sexually or otherwise.)
But me? No way. I need a meeting of minds, not a meeting of bodies, and therefore I'd much rather do that initial interaction in a way that highlights the former instead of the latter.
If I had to rely only on meeting people in physical space, I'd never have any friends, and I wouldn't be married, either (M and I met on a BBS, after all.) So why on earth would I want to waste a bunch of time trying to pick out that one person in a crowd of hundreds who might actually like the real me when I can do that kind of filtering in a much shorter amount of time, and from the comfort of my own computer?
This is not to say that I want to conduct friendships or relationships entirely online. I'd much rather have M within poking distance than stuck in his office across town, and anyone who knows me knows I'm a major cuddle slut with the people I love. It's just that when it comes to the initial butt-sniffing dance, I'd much rather do it in a way that lets me instantly sort for affinity, allows for actual conversation, and allows me to get to know a person instead of just a physical body.
Life's too damned short to waste any of it sifting through haystacks to find a few needles. So sue me if I'd rather bust out the metal detector and make that process a hell of a lot quicker and less painful.
*DragonCon. As opposed to SDCC, which is Nerd Prom.
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no subject
Have you seen this?
10 Myths About Introverts
I've read the book he references, and it's really quite good, but I love how he's created, essentially, a 'pocket guide to introverts'. Spot on.
no subject
I'm definitely a wallflower in a lot of situations, but under the right circumstances, I'm actually a life-of-the-party sort. I love performing, for instance. Get me on a stage or put a microphone in front of me, and everything changes. When I did that Primeval panel Sunday, I'm guessing the rest of the panelists actually found me slightly annoying because I wouldn't shut up. Likewise, if I'm in a social situation in which I know and like at least most of the people there, I'm the one whose voice tends to sail above everyone else because I'm so busy cracking jokes and glomphing everyone.
I'm also a lot more social than M--someone I'd consider much more of a classic introvert sort. He has trouble making eye contact and interacting with cashiers and waiters. Me, I'm perfectly fine in those situations.
I think where the problem comes in for me is if the situation is specifically coded as social, rather than a means to some other end, and I don't already know and trust the people I'm interacting with. In a performing situation, I'm in more control, and there's more framework for what I'm doing, but if the purpose is purely getting-to-know-you stuff, and I'm not certain that the other folks in question are going to be at least somewhat positively predisposed to me, I seize up. Get me at some generic house party with M's co workers or something? I'm the one in the corner playing with the cat or flirting with someone's toddler. It's just easier than trying to make small talk with people with whom I have next to nothing in common.