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Being a Social Animal
So I did it, you guys, I went to the Young Democrats Debate Watching party, and I come to report back. (if you are actively avoiding political stuff, don't worry - this report is about attempting to socialize, I am actively avoiding the politics as well. Yes, I realize this is somewhat contradictory.)
I wandered in about ten minutes late because I had almost managed to chicken out of going at all, but finally I convinced myself that since I'd already wasted half the evening dithering I might as well go. (if I have ever given my readers the impression that I am not socially inept, by the way, you should realize that this impression was completely incorrect.)
It was being held at a fire hall, upstairs, in a part of the county I don't visit very often, so I got there and then drove around in circles debating whether I had to go knocking at all the doors on the dark building to try to find the party, or if I could just go home, having made a good try. I eventually parked, since I'd come that far, and a guy came out of one of the doors to point me up.
I got in just in time to witness them all gathered around a laptop in which they were attempting, with limited success, to conference call in via G+ to state party headquarters who were attempting with limited success to conference call into where the Governor and one of our House representatives wanted to address everybody. They eventually managed to get audio - I think via somebody's cell phone or something - and we got a nice fifteen seconds of the governor telling us we were awesome, yay.
There were maybe thirty people there, speaking generously? And at least ten of them were either campaign workers or elected or party officials, and a fair number of the rest appeared to be people like me who got invites and showed up because they were curious, which makes me wonder if there are really very many active people in the club at all. Also I dressed up a little - party clothes, which means approximately how I dress for a con - and I think the only other people there who were dressed up were other newbies, I should've just stayed in my overalls.
I did my standard strategy in a new social situation, and found somebody who looked at least as uncomfortable and alone as I felt, and went over and asked if I could sit next to them so I'd look less lonely, which tends to work; at worst you wind up with somebody as introverted as you and you can sit there silently looking past each other and yet still not look like you're alone. Anyway, what usually happens is you manage to converse awkwardly, which is what happened. Yay for making an effort to socialize! (Of course my follow-up is crap. I realized that I have no social network-y place to give new people that is friendly-personal but not obviously full of slash fandom. I don't know, would sending them to a tumblr full of photos of Indiana Jones and tentacles or to a blog full of poetry about slug sex be more or less likely to scare them off than sending them here?)
Anyway, the debate itself wasn't too painful, and there was heckling and cheers at the apropos moments, and I think they did help a lot in making it less painful, so that worked out (although I suspect staying in and reading Teen Wolf fic, which was my alternate plan, would have been about as informative about the election. Again, as expected.)
I didn't really talk to any of the Young Democrats. I talked to my new friend and (awkwardly) to a county councilperson I'd met before and to one of the Obama campaign people about volunteering, and that was it; the people who already knew each other just clumped. All I really knew about Young [blank] groups before was my dad's stories about campaigning against Nixon in the early '70s, and somehow I'd been imagining young people who were focused and with it and ambitious and organized and trying desperately to be grown up. That was not this group. I felt old and experienced in comparison, and while I am on my way out of qualifying as 'young', I am in no way with-it or focused or ambitious or organized.
(There was no alcohol, by the way. They didn't manage to get the insurance required to serve drinks at an event at that venue. There was Sprite. In red solo cups.)
I guess all the other active political stuff I've done has been with groups where the median age was about sixty, and the younger people who were involved were used to making sure they could stand with their elders. This was weird.
On the plus side, not intimidating at all (beyond the general 'oh no! people! that I am expected to interact with!' of course.)
There may have been more socializing after the debate but I had a half-hour drive home, and anyway Other Person I Talked To left first, so it counts. :P
I wandered in about ten minutes late because I had almost managed to chicken out of going at all, but finally I convinced myself that since I'd already wasted half the evening dithering I might as well go. (if I have ever given my readers the impression that I am not socially inept, by the way, you should realize that this impression was completely incorrect.)
It was being held at a fire hall, upstairs, in a part of the county I don't visit very often, so I got there and then drove around in circles debating whether I had to go knocking at all the doors on the dark building to try to find the party, or if I could just go home, having made a good try. I eventually parked, since I'd come that far, and a guy came out of one of the doors to point me up.
I got in just in time to witness them all gathered around a laptop in which they were attempting, with limited success, to conference call in via G+ to state party headquarters who were attempting with limited success to conference call into where the Governor and one of our House representatives wanted to address everybody. They eventually managed to get audio - I think via somebody's cell phone or something - and we got a nice fifteen seconds of the governor telling us we were awesome, yay.
There were maybe thirty people there, speaking generously? And at least ten of them were either campaign workers or elected or party officials, and a fair number of the rest appeared to be people like me who got invites and showed up because they were curious, which makes me wonder if there are really very many active people in the club at all. Also I dressed up a little - party clothes, which means approximately how I dress for a con - and I think the only other people there who were dressed up were other newbies, I should've just stayed in my overalls.
I did my standard strategy in a new social situation, and found somebody who looked at least as uncomfortable and alone as I felt, and went over and asked if I could sit next to them so I'd look less lonely, which tends to work; at worst you wind up with somebody as introverted as you and you can sit there silently looking past each other and yet still not look like you're alone. Anyway, what usually happens is you manage to converse awkwardly, which is what happened. Yay for making an effort to socialize! (Of course my follow-up is crap. I realized that I have no social network-y place to give new people that is friendly-personal but not obviously full of slash fandom. I don't know, would sending them to a tumblr full of photos of Indiana Jones and tentacles or to a blog full of poetry about slug sex be more or less likely to scare them off than sending them here?)
Anyway, the debate itself wasn't too painful, and there was heckling and cheers at the apropos moments, and I think they did help a lot in making it less painful, so that worked out (although I suspect staying in and reading Teen Wolf fic, which was my alternate plan, would have been about as informative about the election. Again, as expected.)
I didn't really talk to any of the Young Democrats. I talked to my new friend and (awkwardly) to a county councilperson I'd met before and to one of the Obama campaign people about volunteering, and that was it; the people who already knew each other just clumped. All I really knew about Young [blank] groups before was my dad's stories about campaigning against Nixon in the early '70s, and somehow I'd been imagining young people who were focused and with it and ambitious and organized and trying desperately to be grown up. That was not this group. I felt old and experienced in comparison, and while I am on my way out of qualifying as 'young', I am in no way with-it or focused or ambitious or organized.
(There was no alcohol, by the way. They didn't manage to get the insurance required to serve drinks at an event at that venue. There was Sprite. In red solo cups.)
I guess all the other active political stuff I've done has been with groups where the median age was about sixty, and the younger people who were involved were used to making sure they could stand with their elders. This was weird.
On the plus side, not intimidating at all (beyond the general 'oh no! people! that I am expected to interact with!' of course.)
There may have been more socializing after the debate but I had a half-hour drive home, and anyway Other Person I Talked To left first, so it counts. :P