They are caused by an introverted need to not be surrounded by a lot of people. Sensory overload with all the talking and energy and pretty and shiny and people
Yup. Groping is not the problem for me. I'm not a natural born hugger from the standpoint of, I don't think everyone is dying to have me run right over and hug them as soon as I see them. I don't think to intiate hugs unless it's someone I've known a very long time. I will, however, accept any hug that is intiated on me. I love hugs, I'm just hug-initiate deficiant. A mild grope in good humor is well and good, too. Just, don't grab the back of my neck from behind or I will put you on the floor in a thumb lock faster than you can say "ow."
It's the being around too many people, for too long. I get to where every nerve in my brain is oversensitized and I go straight from, "gee, this is fun, to, MIGRAINE, NOW."
See, if I knew how to do a Sail Aweigh thumb lock, so many problems would be over before they started.
Anyway -- THIS is what I mean. The being overwhelmed by too many people, and then the overwhelmed feeling leads to (for me) flipping out when someone is being touchy-feely, even when I know that it's totally a friendly gesture.
Teppy, I have no memory of invading your space, but if I did I apologize. Same goes for anyone else's boundaries I crossed unknowingly.
I'm pretty sure you didn't, but thank you. (It was, honestly, about 3 people at Prom, the third of whom was juliana, who had the bad luck to be #3. #1 and #2 kind of overloaded me in a "Hands! Hands in new places!" way, so when juliana did nothing more than hug, or possibly just the put-a-hand-on-someone's-arm-in-passing, I lost it, all out of proportion to what she did. If she had been #1, I would have probably hugged her back, or did the hand-on-the-arm thing in return.)
Really, it was very much a problem that arose from where I was, mentally, at that point in my life. Buffistas aren't creepy indiscriminate gropers, and I *really* apologize if I gave that impression.
Okay. Friday is my day off (office is closed), and I have to go drop off computers at the E-scrap place. Back soon.
Aww, pretty happy beer-drinking people!
(And I don't think I'd ever seen Mr. Jars before.)
so when juliana did nothing more than hug, or possibly just the put-a-hand-on-someone's-arm-in-passing,
Knowing me (and my "I Love You Man" Juice level), it was probably an overly-enthusiastic hug.
Hey! I didn't straddle anyone in Vegas! (Did I?)
hahaha, no. But it easily could have happened!
I'm another person with firm no-grope/no-snogging boundaries (stealth backrubs, OTOH, are welcome and encouraged) who has had no trouble at all at F2Fs. Most of the wildest stuff that happened at the F2Fs I've been to? I didn't even know about until weeks later, when Hec started prodding the participants for all the good gossip and sharing it with me.
I'm also another shy person frequently mistaken for a snob; add in a layer of still-not-terribly-clueful-about-casual-social-interactions and a large helping of Susan's issues with Too Much Noise, and you get, well, an ugly mess. I'm horrible at large events unless I can find a quiet corner, and I'm horrible at events where I don't know anyone very well. I'm pretty sure that if I do anything very evil in this life, my personal eternal hell will be an SRO heavy metal stadium concert Event, in the middle of a crowd composed equally of people I sort of know from work and large, vaguely angry-looking chain-smoking strangers.
F2Fs, though? I definitely do better with the tiny one or two out-of-towners ones, but even the big ones are infinitely better and less stressful than, well, just about any non-Buffista Big Event I've ever been to.
As Scrappy notes, the best part of F2F is just being able to walk into rooms (or out of them) and seeing people you like.
At the SF2F, Scola and I took off for lunch, ran into Cass on the street, collected her, said hi to TomW who was heading to his work conference and like that.
Though I'm always put out when people ditch Prom, I do know enough about my Buffistas to plan ahead and arrange private outings with the more introverted. Which is why I took Fay to get her hair cut, and we had a long talk over lunch about street theater, and went pub hopping with Nora, and I dragged brenda to the Zam Zam and had a brunch with Teppy and trimmed Amy's hair on my back porch (which turned out to be a group event as a lot of folks just wandered over to our house that Sunday, which was nice and low key).
signed,
Extrovert Outlier
I didn't straddle anyone in Vegas! (Did I?)
I thought what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas.
This seems as a good a time as any to link to my epic post about the SF2F. Ah, memories.
I thought what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas.
a) Have you been reading my journal the past few days??
b) That's only because we killed copious amounts of brain cells with giant, rum-filled, smoking drinks called Warp Core Breach and Borgsphere.
