Friday, October 1, 2010

Scary People


 It's amazing how one little tweet can bring up a time of self-inspection.

Yup, that's the tweet.

For the record. I'm actually quite the outgoing, social butterfly. Until you put me in a giant room, with a hundreds of people who I don't know, far away from home. Yeah, then I shut down. Sensory overload? Yep. My introverted side kicks into high gear and it takes all I have not to run out the doors and sequester myself in the nearest coffee shop/bookstore.

To be honest? Even blogger meet-ups terrify me!

I say that having only been to one. It was a trip up to DC to meet with several healthy-living bloggers. It was also the weekend after the Cherry Blossom Festival, so I dragged my Italian up there to explore.

When Anne from FANNEtasticFood e-mailed out the invite, I responded with a resounding yes and said:
I'll be there! I'm totally excited (and completely nervous . . . silly!) about it!
 It was true, I was totally excited to meet all the bloggers. But I was terrified!
  • What if they don't like me?
  • I'm not even from DC, what if they hold that against me?
  • What if they realize that I'm still striving to live healthy? That I'm really just trying to lose weight right now . . . Will they be okay with that?
  • What if they're all absolutely gorgeous and skinny and snobby?
Anne assured me everyone was really nice. And they were! But honestly, if my Italian had not been with me, I think I very well may have completely shut down! Everyone was AB.SO.LOOT.LEE. Gorgeous (and skinny) but they were all very kind too.

Now I figured this was just a "me" issue. When I read what the illustrious, super-self confident MizFit tweeted about just going up to people and introducing yourself and explaining your by yourself and feeling awkward, I thought wow . . . that's pretty sage advice if you ask me. So I said so. When she replied with this:

 
I almost fell out of my chair! MizFit? Awkward? What?? **does not compute** 
At the same time, I realized something. These super-bloggers I greatly admire, are 

Just. Human. (What? Really? No . . . way!)

I've decided to woman up and maybe drag myself bribe myself into going pop up at a blogger conference. (I'm thinking either Chicago (as I know people there) or New York (as Bethlehem, PA isn't that far away) to attend.) 

All I ask is that if you see a brown-haired woman in the corner rocking and sucking her thumb, it's probably me. Have a little pity and smack me out of it.

Thanks! 


7 comments:

  1. Nothing else but xo xo.

    Oh and my whole life is awkward. I'm misfit.

    ;)

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  2. I've get terrified too. I've got a conference under my belt and another coming up, some Twitter meetups, and even one I backed out of. Gah! And I am nervous. Always always nervous from the start. And then I warm up. And have a blast of a time. :)

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  3. I'll be going to blogworld expo in 2 weeks and I find myself wondering if it's the right choice for my first conference. It's a complete baptism by fire but I figure if I can make it through those few days (and maybe even enjoy myself :) ) I'll be able to go to any conference after that and enjoy myself. Maybe we can setup some virtual group therapy or something to cope, haha!

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  4. Perception is an interesting thing. Thanks for correcting my perception and for the support!

    I vote for virtual group therapy . . . wait . . . isn't that twitter?

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  5. It's interesting - realizing that everybody deals with the same anxieties. I remember having a reputation as a snob when I was in high school. By no means was I a snob. I was just shy.

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  6. I've never been to a blogging conference. And I've been blogging for three years. Part of the reason is money. But a bigger part is that I'm nervous when I step out from behind the keyboard. Maybe some day.

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  7. I'm going to Foodbuzz in November and have been feeling progressively more nervous about it. I'm dying to meet up with other bloggers and just hope that people will be open. I'm glad to know other bloggers are feeling that anxiety too :)

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