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[This rambles a bit. Get over it. I'm too tired to go back and thoroughly edit it.]
There are tons of funny stories being told all over the bloody internet about the really cool, wickedly awesome, and devastatingly embarrassing things that happened at TequilaCon 08. (See Miss Britt, Avitable, or Karl for examples.)
Since I didn’t go, and have already shared my audio participation in the event, I’m going to focus on some of the navel gazing that is the inevitable result following a highly anticipated social event.
A few people (so far) have written posts about their anxiety and nervousness surrounding meeting new people. Some focused on their weight and body issues. Some focused on their perceived “exclusion” from the group of bloggers who “already knew each other.” (See Hilly or Shiny for examples.)
What I find amazing is that nearly every single one of those bloggers expressed the same thought: “I’m afraid no one will like me and I will say something wrong.”
I grew up fat, gay, and “gifted.” Contrary to popular belief, that did not make me Prom King.
I could talk to any adult. I often ate lunch with my teachers. I could not make friends with my peers. I didn’t know how to interact, always watching every thing I said. Afraid to interject anything into a conversation, mostly because of my experience of having conversations stop cold when I did.
I rarely got invited to parties, and if I did wrangle an invitation and attend, I spent the entire time watching the fun from the kitchen (eating, no doubt) or skating with my “friend’s” younger sibling.
My “best friend” and I were inseparable on weekends and at church. But we had an understanding that he would likely not talk to me during the week at school, lest he give up his status as one of the popular kids. I totally understood his reasoning and went along with it, because I thought that was the way it worked.
At some point in high school when I moved to a new town and got a fresh start, I figured out that if I played the role of the funny fat guy I’d get invited to better parties. You see that guy in all the comedies, right? He’s the guy in the toga by the beer keg. He’s the guy surrounded by all the wallflower girls with braces who have secret crushes on the quarterback. I became THAT guy.
Self-deprecating humor became my social lubricant. I would tell jokes about myself that I assumed everyone else was telling about me when I wasn’t around.
I still fall into that pattern when I’m in uncomfortable situations. I guess old habits die hard.
One of my best friends in high school was my English teacher (old habits blah blah). She was 25 and very cute. Her name was Helen. We spent a lot of time together working on drama club (drama club!?) and other extra-curricular activities. We spent so much time together in fact, that there were rumors that we were more than friends. Actually, I was interviewed by the principal and guidance counselor about it, but that’s a story for another time perhaps.
Anyway, Helen could tell I was having some trouble socially (whether she recognized I was gay or not, who knows), and one day after school she handed me a photograph.
It was of her in high school. Braces. Curly frizzy hair. Flat chested and gangly. She said, “It won’t always be like it was in high school.” And then she told me one of the wisest things I’ve ever heard someone say: “Every single person on this planet thinks of themselves as an outsider. Everyone is self-conscious about something, the way they look, their intelligence, money, something. Some people have just figured out how to pretend they aren’t.”
Maybe it was just the timing, or confirmation of something I already suspected, but it clicked with me. I can pinpoint that as the day that I figured out that it really didn’t matter whether anyone liked me or not, since they had their own problems.
I don’t have the anxieties I used to have, at least not nearly as often. But I don’t think it’s coincidental that a significant number of my relationships are contained within the internet and this blog.
I think it’s probably fair to say that most bloggers have the same sort of insecurities and social worries… it’s one of the reasons we blog. Humans need that social outlet, we just choose to do it electronically.
I didn’t make it to TequilaCon 08. I just couldn’t afford it. I WILL attend TequilaCon 09. And I hope that everyone out there who is normally too shy or self-conscious to attend events like that will suck it up and come along. I’m sure that the “group” that hangs out here on my blog are every bit as friendly and open minded in person as they seem to be online.
And if they aren’t?
Come find me next to the beer keg. I’ll be the guy wearing a toga.
