Wednesday, February 21, 2018

How I approach people I know on the internet at conventions:

How I approach people I know on the internet at conventions:
-- Walk up slowly. See if they show signs of recognizing me.

-- If not or if I'm unsure, say something like "Hi, I'm William from the internet. We talk about . "

Sometimes, this goes immediately to a hug. Usually not. In a couple of instances, this has turned into an immediate pickup game. That was great.

My general assumption is that I blend into crowds. I'm not extremely tall, fat, skinny, or short. I walk on both legs, wear glasses, have no tattoos and wear boring clothes. I don't sell anything or publish anything. My face is largely symmetrical, and devoid of obvious markers.

[ On the clothes: it's like a uniform. I wear essentially the same clothes every day. Do it once and forget it.]

Which is to say: I totally get it if we meet and you don't know who the fuck I am.

There is a chance I won't know who you are, either. The above is a pretty reasonable way of introducing yourself to me. Please take no offense by it -- we'll all be overloaded.

And if you see me before I've had coffee? I won't be an actual human being. I'll be a zombie in search of brains coffee.

6 comments:

  1. My thing is that I never look at people's photos. I see their thumbnails, which are typically smaller than the (trimmed short) nail on my actual thumb. So I actually have no clue what a lot of people actually look like, even if I interact with them online quite a lot.

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  2. And sometimes they have a picture of a rodent.

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  3. Hah "I'm William from the Internet" sounds like an a 90s sitcom!

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  4. I have a stuffed pony that's designed to sit on my shoulder and looks like my online icon. I have often considered just wearing it to cons so people could recognize me. :)

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  5. Eva Schiffer yes! Do that! I wear a tiara (not always, just sometimes, at cons where I'm new.)

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  6. I'm moderately faceblind and have a terrible memory for names, so I'm like a sitcom joke waiting to happen. It's awesome if someone recognizes me and doesn't assume I remember their name! (No offense meant really, it's just really hard for me. Though I remember written names much better than spoken, so I'm more likely to recognize Internet people by name.)

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