OK, maybe not, but it amused me to consider the possibility that someone would create such an elaborate secret identity.
In truth, I had an enjoyable lunch with Neil and Sophia. It was fun meeting them both and set an excellent precedent as my first blogger encounter. I hope I made a favorable impression. I was myself, of that much I'm certain.
It's strange to me that anticipating meeting new people should make me anxious, whereas I'm relatively at ease during the actual meeting (as long as there aren't too many people). What's that anxiety about anyway? Fear of being disliked, having nothing to say, boredom, disliking someone else, feeling clutzy, not good enough, wearing the wrong clothes, saying the wrong thing, offending someone? As I get older, most of these things don't concern me that much or even cross my mind at all when I feel anxious. Maybe it's been reduced to a Pavlovian response to the idea of interacting with new people, a vestige of shyness that at one time had more substantial roots. If that's the case, I should be able to train myself out of it, but I suspect that would require meeting a lot more people which still feels a bit daunting.
Maybe I'm transferring my large group anxiety to all cases of new people. At a party, it can feel like you're competing for people's attention. If you're not entertaining enough, they'll listen to someone better, while trying to be 'on' is jarring to my temperament. One of the things I love about writing is that I can get my whole thought out sans interruption even if it's a bit involved to express. Hmm.
One year ago at TTaT: A Prelude to Bewitched
tags: meeting+new+people, meeting+bloggers+in+person, Neil+and+Sophia, Citizen+of+the+Month, shyness
