![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Sep. 5th, 2011 01:34 pm
Confessions of a budding agoraphobe
So, 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.
( I love people. I do. Really. So much so that I prefer actually getting to know them. )
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.
( I love people. I do. Really. So much so that I prefer actually getting to know them. )
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.
Tags:
