Bless me y'all, for I have sinned.

[featherynscale]

The whole thing seemed pretty innocent at the time. I was just going to go over to Meetup.com, and put Gaia's Games Night on the list as a Board/Card Game Meetup. That was it. Of course, to do that, I had to get an account. And then, I thought, while I'm here, I'll just poke about and see if there's anything interesting going on in Kansas City...

Suddenly, without stopping to consider, I was signing up for all kinds of things. Pagan meetup, environmentalist meetup, neurolinguistic programming meetup (what does that even mean?). And then, in the next breath, Kansas City Speculative Fiction Writers' meetup. They meet regularly. They critique each others' work. They have a meeting this Thursday. One of them sent me a personal note explaining the process and asking me to come.

So I say to myself, "What the hell am I thinking? I do not need another regularly scheduled meeting, even if it would be fun and might help! I am on The Crack!". But I'm thinking of going anyway. I have this problem. I see things, I think "Oh, yes, that sounds like fun, I will do that!", and then, here I am, with no free time and seventy-twelve commitments still to fulfill. I have Helium Hand.

And then, last night, triadruid says to me, "We want you to serve on the Nominating Committee for Gaia next year." And I say, "Why? I don't want to be on the Nominating Committee, and besides, I suck at it." He says, "Because you've been around forever, you know everybody, and you've been on every committee we have, so you know what they need." I protest. "I have not been on every committee!" He says,"Name one that you haven't served on." I say, "Caring." For some reason, everybody laughs.

So that's my sad story. Also, while I was on the Meetup.com website, I noticed that Kansas City has a large number of people who say they are interested in a group about shyness and social anxiety. But nobody's called a meeting about it yet. Ha. I think if they did, I might go. Except, you know, I'm shy. :/

Comments

meetup

[lightonthesill.livejournal.com]

I share this meetup disease. A digest email comes regularly telling me of pagan, witch, goddess, herbalism and I think... I should start an interfaith one.... wait... I've already got one of those....

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

*icontalk*

[beccak1961.livejournal.com]

It's wonderful you're so enthusiastic and willing to join and do things.

Re: meetup

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

*snort*

Luckily, Meetup allows you to commandeer their meetups for already-scheduled meetings, as a way of publicity/networking.

Unfortunately, they do charge somewhat for it these days.

Re: meetup

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I was somewhat surprised to see that they charged now. The last time I looked at it, it seemed like they did not. But whatever. I paid the fee for the one I put on there, and consider it an additional donation to Gaia.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

*snicker*
Very nice.

You rule. I was going to do this this week.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Also, there are 23 people on the Druid Meetup waitlist, possibly something to bring up on Monday.

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

But I can quit any time I want to...

right?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but then we'd probably be bored.

Re: You rule. I was going to do this this week.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there's a way to get those people's email addresses without setting up a meetup. I'll check into that.

[zylch.livejournal.com]

true, but you might also be well-rested.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't know. :(

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

I'll quite happily devote hours and hours of my life over several months, training for a 60-mile walk.

But thinking about more than one or two social engagements in the course of a week? Not meetings? Just playing or socializing? Maybe with people I don't know? Makes me sort of break out in a sweat just thinking about it. Eep.

Yup. Still an introvert.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Strange how "Slack" never showed up on your list of Virtues...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Slack is not a virtue, that's why. Slack is the deliberate and meditative act of avoiding virtue.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

So virtues are only things that are difficult and onerous?

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Nope. But simply having the qualities of ease or enjoyableness does not necessarily imply that a think is slack. Slack is much more specific than that.

They ruined it

[crookedface.livejournal.com]

I was coordinator for a short while for the NLP group--the announcement that Meetup was going to begin charging money for services came shortly after I signed on to coordinate and I immediately removed myself.

Not that many people were listed as interested in NLP at that time. I think there were four of us....

Re: They ruined it

[crookedface.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, if you're serious about some NLP discussion, I can get you on a dedicated NLP mailing list. Former regulars from alt.psychology.nlp moved to a mailing list to avoid the trolls. The traffic's not heavy and most of the folks are provide useful information and interesting conversation.

Let me know.

Re: They ruined it

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

That would be excellent. Thank you!

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

I would give a rousing cheer of, "Introverts Unite!" But that seems a bit of an oxymoron...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I actually feel much the same way. I have no problems (anymore) dealing with people if there is a specific purpose to the thing, but I can't really manage Just Hanging Out or Just Making Nice with people I don't know. But then, LJ aside, I try not to talk if I don't have anything to say.

I've been working on the extraversion thing, though, because I think to a certain extent, you have to do it to survive. So I've shifted myself from a middle-range I on the MBTI (that's the only MBTI scale that means anything, so I don't feel bad about quoting it)to straddling the I/E line. However, this has taken about 10 years, and I think it's about as good as it's gonna get at this point.

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can perform, all right. When there's need or a specific intent or duty or whatever. You know it's not about being shy or having any social anxiety.

But when I have a choice? I just don't seek out extra social stuff, or try to create it. These days, I also reserve a certain amount of time to myself FIRST, rather than trying to carve it out later. Works better for me that way. (shrug)

Y'all have fun. :)

Re: They ruined it

[crookedface.livejournal.com]

Let me know what email address you want to use for the list and I'll get the info to the list owner with a recommendation (the key to entry).

[wildnsquirrelly.livejournal.com]

:: apprehensively watches everyone as they discuss 'socializing' ::

[liquidfun.livejournal.com]

Along the lines of a group about "shyness and social anxiety" with nobody stepping forward to call the first meeting ...

I've considered going to a "Neurotics Anonymous" meeting, but I haven't. Why? Because I'm worried that I'm not neurotic enough and they'd turn me away.