As far as that subset goes, they sounded a bit inflexible or closed-minded... being in a minority oneself doesn't necessarily mean openness to others.
A big part of my self-consciousness comes from childhood in Georgia -- in the 1970s, drawing attention to oneself was likely to draw abuse, even beatings by groups of kids, except for certain socially-approved distinctions (mostly from athletic pursuits). So I learned to always reflexively do a threat-assessment upon entering a room or approaching a group of people, and to constantly scan myself to ensure that I wasn't looking/saying/doing anything that could be turned into a pretext for more abuse. Keeping a low profile...
At cons, full of people I don't know with different customs and unwritten rules, I've been as wary as if I were entering a previously-unvisited foreign country... probably with stressed and tense body language, nonverbally warning people to stay back. And as always, I went stag... one thing I could certainly do to help myself is to recruit friends to go together to events.
(wonder if I should get a full Bill Nye outfit... I already have the lab coat... ;-)
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Date: 2004-06-03 07:27 am (UTC)A big part of my self-consciousness comes from childhood in Georgia -- in the 1970s, drawing attention to oneself was likely to draw abuse, even beatings by groups of kids, except for certain socially-approved distinctions (mostly from athletic pursuits). So I learned to always reflexively do a threat-assessment upon entering a room or approaching a group of people, and to constantly scan myself to ensure that I wasn't looking/saying/doing anything that could be turned into a pretext for more abuse. Keeping a low profile...
At cons, full of people I don't know with different customs and unwritten rules, I've been as wary as if I were entering a previously-unvisited foreign country... probably with stressed and tense body language, nonverbally warning people to stay back. And as always, I went stag... one thing I could certainly do to help myself is to recruit friends to go together to events.
(wonder if I should get a full Bill Nye outfit... I already have the lab coat... ;-)