Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 18:24:39 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>
From: Candy Madigan <candymadigan at mindspring.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: re: capclave etc.
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

At 10:13 AM 03/11/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>Sorry to be jumping on the bandwagon late, but my home
>computer is having some problems, so I wasn't able to
>view the weekend messages until work today.
>
>I think I too would have to take issue with the
>description of a significant number of SF con goers as
>"losers."  While I'll certainly admit lots of fen
>aren't the world's snappiest dressers or the most
>socially ept (or whatever the opposite of inept is)
>people in the world, as a general rule, I've found
>them to be a friendly and welcoming bunch.  When I was
>going to cons in NYC as a kid (mostly the creation
>cons, which don't really count), I always found my
>fellow whovians to be very friendly and worth getting
>to know.  They were people who had no objection to a
>stranger joining the conversation and they were
>willing to treat a kid as an equal and not talk down
>to him or her. I welcome the opportunity to meet
>people I don't already know through my current
>somewhat limited SF activities.

Look, one of the things I like about fandom is that it is welcoming to
everyone, it is a place where people who were never properly socialized
(usually because they were too intelligent for their own good) have the
chance to get socialized.  And I'm NOT an example of well-socialized, but
I've had fandom to help me get as socialized as I am.  And of course, I'm
still too honest for my own good.  Witness this conversation and the fact
that I've offended a whole lot of people that I would probably like.

One of the problems with being too intelligent for your own good is that
you are never taught "common sense" (which actually is neither common nor a
sense).  People assume that since you are so far ahead intellectually, that
you've already picked up on little details like how to hold your fork like
an adult instead of a small child.  And so, unless you are lucky and
someone sees the lessons you missed and teaches you, you get weirder and
weirder and less and less able to fake being in the mainstream.

As I get older, I have less patience.  I don't have time for people who are
deliberately rude to people that they perceive as their intellectual
inferiors.  One of the hardest lessons that the military has taught me, is
that it doesn't matter if I'm smarter than my peers, I also have to be able
to get along with them.

So, of course, I've pissed you all off.

*sigh*

>One of the benefits of growing a con is that it
>results hopefully, in meeting more people.  I think
>this is preferable to it being the same small "in
>crowd" every year. I think at the moment we probably
>need to keep Capclave somewhat small/simple in terms
>of programming because it's a somewhat new venture and
>having programming all over the map may not be easy to
>manage.  however, if the capclaves future have
>organizers who want particular lines of programming
>other than the sort of panels we had at Capclave past
>and are willing to properly organize said programming,
>more power to them.  For instance, I went cold turkey
>on my comicbook buying during my last bout of
>unemployment, but if I were still really into comics,
>I could definitely see volunteering to organize a
>comic book panel or trivia contest or something. I
>think this is different from having a large number of
>different tracksjust because we feel it is necessary
>to try to make everyone happy.

And I'm not particularly interested in the various programming.  I enjoy
getting to meet new and interesting people.