My thoughts on Fray Day 4, September 2000

I want to write a little about Fray Day before it sinks off into a vague memory...

I left late on Friday afternoon, 'cause crap kept happening. I finally left, in enough time to get to dinner if I didn't run into traffic. Heh. Friday afternoon. Of course, I hit traffic.

I was about half an hour late , but I finally get there and had dinner with Brig (who organized it), Matt and Kay, Dan, and Brad. Of the five, I'd only ever met Dan before. Everyone was really nice, but Brig seemed to me to be one of the few people I've met even shyer than me.

I started to get the feeling that I had for the rest of the night: simultaneously too old and too young to be hanging around with these folks.

The too old part is easy. I may be 39, but that makes me tons older than all the 20-somethings there. I just want to pat all these people on the head or cheek and tell them to enjoy themselves and this time in their lives. I spent most of my twenties pretending that I was in my forties, working for a large corporation, wearing a suit, and trying desperately to pretend that I could be happy with a husband, kid, and 3/2 house in the suburbs. I feel like I've spent most of my thirties competing with people in their twenties: "Okay, I'm not dressed in black, my hair is only one color, and I don't have any tattoos, but I can program, really!" I've ended up becoming a writer just because I got tired of competing with people who don't have kids and/or mortgages.

The too young part is a little trickier. I've never in my life been part of the in-crowd, and it was really painful to realize that I was feeling like I was back in high school looking at the popular kids and wishing desperately that I was one of them. No Weblog in-crowd? Yeah, right. Take a look at MetaFilter, or the Weblog Hotlist, or Beebo's ratings, or Blogeur, or ... It becomes fairly clear who's in and who's not, and it was very strange to once again be that sad little girl who would have done nearly anything to be on the inside.

Which isn't to say that people weren't nice--Brig invited me to the weblogger dinner, Cam saw me looking lost and told me who was who and that I should just go up and introduce myself, Meg remembered that we met briefly several months ago and introduced me to a few more people, and Derek came up and said hi like a good host, wanting to make sure that I was having a good time.

Part of my uncomfortableness had to do with the nature of weblogs themselves. Take a look at the links in this piece--these are people who, for the most part, have sites that I read daily. On my side of the monitor, I know who they are, what they're doing, who their friends are, where they work, what interests them, etc. I like these people, and feel a bond to their lives.

On their side of their monitors, they have at most a vague idea of who I am.

There is no relationship here. It feels like there is--I put up my stuff, and then I go and read theirs. But that doesn't mean that everyone I read reads this. I kept wanting to go up to people and say something like "Hey, how's that work situation?" "How's the new car?" "How's the wedding plans?" and when I would, they'd look at me like, well, anyone would if a complete stranger came up to them and started asking personal questions. It's one-sided: they give and I take.

This weblog isn't about being popular, and this piece isn't a bid for readership. It's called Backup Brain, not ohGodEveryonePleaseReadMyBlog.com. I started it just as a place to put links that I'd want to be able to find again later, and Blogger is a wonderful tool for just that purpose. It's been successful at that, and as time has gone on we've started adding more personal stuff because we have friends who visit here who want to know what's up with our lives. Yeah, I wouldn't object if this blog hit the must-read lists, but that's not its goal.

So, some things for me to think about.

Other thoughts about the evening:

The name tags had a little area on them, with one of several possible sentence openings. Mine started "I would like to say: ". I hate being put on the spot like that. You need to think of something intelligent and witty, right this minute, because people are going to be judging you based on your statement for the rest of the evening. The best I could come up with at short notice was "I would like to say something intelligent and witty." Weak, huh? When in doubt, go meta.
The Sticker Booth Project was cool. In retrospect, I wish I'd given away more of my stickers and asked for some from others.
My main objection to parties thrown by twenty-somethings is that they always feel a need to have really loud music. There wasn't any at Fray Day. It was immensely freeing to be able to talk to people without having to yell at the top of my lungs. And it was really nice to wake up the next morning and not have laryngitis from shouting for hours.
Lance Arthur's story just blew me away. Completely. And I wasn't the only one, either. I wanted to go up to him afterwards and thank him for his emotional honesty and courage, but from the time he finished to the time I left he was constantly surrounded by other people, and he probably didn't need anyone adding their psychic weight to what he was already carrying. But hey, Lance, in the infinitesimal chance you read this: you done good. Thank you.
Brig wrote some thoughts about her take on the event. The difference between where she's coming from versus me is simple: she can be comfortable with her silence. Me, I get extremely uncomfortable. I realized years ago that I was a miserable introvert, and given that I was already miserable, I should try being an extrovert at social events. My theory was that the misery might get better or worse, but at least I might have a better time. It hasn't been a complete success, but it lets me do things like attend events at all.

I wish I knew these people better. I wish I was better at starting and maintaining relationships. I wish I could be more of an extrovert. I wish I didn't have old tapes running in my head about popularity.

Anything that makes me think is a valuable experience, and Fray Day 4 gave me a number of things to think about. Thanks, Derek.