Withdrawing

Sun, 17 Aug 2014 04:08:35 GMT

Lately, I am withdrawing again from the company of most humans. I have trouble finding words for how it feels, but it's not entirely unpleasant from my point of view. I like being alone. I like being in my home. I like having lots of downtime.

The rough part is always managing the disappointment (at best) and pathologization* (at worst) of people with whom I end up canceling plans. I make very few plans, in general, but in my more gregarious times, my desire to see my friends and do interesting things sometimes writes checks the hermit within can't cash. And then I go back to making no plans at all, until my next burst of feeling like everything sounds like SO MUCH FUN.

I love my friends—the ones I'm close to, who are few, and most of the people I'm just friendly with. I just don't have the [energy | desire | ganas] to do anything about it most of the time. Doesn't lessen my love for them, but it certainly does reduce the amount of shared experience we can use to build and deepen our relationships, and it does, I'm sure, harm people's feelings of closeness to me. So it's something I hope to become better at managing, or finding ways to connect with people in spite of it. Or something.

*That is, people's expressed views about how it's unhealthy for me to draw inward like this, or how I'm probably depressed. If I am, it's either so mild that I don't recognize it as such, or its main "symptom" is a desire to be by myself, which doesn't keep me from going to work or functioning in the world, so I feel frustrated and minimized when people need to tell me that my "wintry" feeling is depression, even as I take care to concede that it may be, even if it doesn't seem that way to me.

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Con report: Baycon 2013: Triskaidekaphobicon

Tue, 28 May 2013 03:45:33 GMT

I suppose I can stop saying I'm new to science-fiction cons now. I've been to three FOGcons, and now a Baycon. I wasn't planning to go; I had planned to go to Wiscon and see many awesome people, but plane fares ended up being prohibitive for me, and hitchhiker asked if I was up for doing Baycon on shortish notice, so I said sure, and we went. hitchhiker and I make pretty good con buddies—similar pace and desire to follow the music, to name a couple of things. It was fun.

Essentially, the whole weekend can be summed up as "hitchhiker and I followed each other around to panels and concerts, drove somewhere to get brunch and dinner every day, and got slightly lost several times a day." When we'd done FOGcon together last time, we found we both liked book panels, author interviews, and anything music-related. This time, we went for broke on all counts, and it worked out great.

That's the short con report. The longer one (or, rather, the rest of a longer one) is below, under the magical courtesy cuts.

( Friday )
( Ramblings about filk from a former filk virgin )
( Saturday )
( Sunday )

In case I haven't said it enough, I had a wonderful, wonderful time. Nearly a perfect weekend, even though I was surrounded by hundreds of strangers for hours at a time. I really think I've finally found a meatspace social setting I can thrive in. This is big for me. Potentially expensive, but big. :-)

A few more random thoughts about this con, and how it compares with FOGcon:

( Things I like better about FOGcon than Baycon, in no special order )
( Things I liked better about Baycon, in no special order )

And then I think the size thing was a wash. I like small social environments, but I also love big crowds (though the noise can get to me after a while) because I can people-watch in relative anonymity, and I can withdraw to my room without anyone (except those I'm traveling with) noticing.

Similarly, the hotel and the location were equally fine with me.

( The once and future swag )

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Serene of the Oakland Serenes

Withdrawing

Con report: Baycon 2013: Triskaidekaphobicon