Corflu Anxiety

[randy_byers]

I can't resist the subject-line, because it makes me think of the Mel Brooks parody of Corflu, but that's not really what this is about.

I generally had a terrific time at E Corflu Vitus. I saw lots of friends, got plenty of egoboo, ate good food, and felt the pulse of fandom hot beneath my finger. Yet my experience was colored throughout by a fair amount of anxiety. This is not exactly unusual for me at a Corflu. Typically I experience a slightly desperate feeling of not being able to give everybody the attention they deserve. This time it seemed stronger, more like performance anxiety, and more challenging to my sense of self-worth. Which is very strange to me, because as I said before, I got a lot of love from my friends, and yet somehow -- sometimes -- I was turning it into a feeling of loneliness and unworthiness.

My only theory -- going with that sense of performance anxiety -- is that I was feeling that I needed to be on at all moments. It was like being on stage 24/7. There was a certain manic quality to the fun, and I think I must have been feeling brittle. I remember that in the last couple of days before the convention, I wasn't sure I was ready for the level of energy you find at a Corflu. I wasn't sure I was up for it.

Well, I don't want to make too much of it. It was only one thread in the fabric. But it has lingered in the days since, so there's something going on there. It reminds me of the mixed sense of towering elation and creeping uncertainty of my earliest conventions, and I thought I'd left that uncertainty far behind as my network of friends expanded. It would be a pity if it resurfaced at this late date, especially if it's because the network has actually gotten too big for my introverted self.

Comments

[jimtrash.livejournal.com]

Goodness - a weird contradiction seeing as you seem to have had such a good time.
Me, I'm mostly just jealous because I didn't get to go but also want to say a me too to the anxiety. Cons are pressure cookers (and other assorted metaphors) and can leave one feeling quite drained.
My anxiety is probably is still that early stage anxiety that you mention. Even tho' I've been knocking around fandom for quite a while, I've immersed myself only a little and so haven't spread my network as far as I could.
However given the high pressure, draining nature of conventions - could it be just post con blues you're experiencing?
Regards
Jim

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I did feel it worst at the end and as I was traveling home, so maybe you're onto something with the post-con blues theory. The contradictory nature of the experience was certainly confusing.

My network has expanded vastly since I started co-editing a fanzine and ran for TAFF. Going to Corflu regularly has been part of it too.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I can feel like that at conventions too. Sometimes I just don't connect with them.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That was the weird thing: I did feel connected, and yet the connection seemed to be causing dissonance. Or something.

[grytpype-thynne.livejournal.com]

You were splendid company, especially during those intimate moments involving awkward seat belts in the back of a Honda Civic with one of the fishlifters.

Ironically, for me, the moment I finally settled and understood I was there, it was real, and it would all be fine was when we met at the market in Alameda.

Mind you, I wouldn't have done that talk about fan art stone cold sober...

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I can see it now, a future return to Alameda: "This is the market where it all started." But yeah, that's how it felt for me too. Nothing like meeting up with foreign friends in a location you've never been to before.

And I'm sure we will never forget our time in the backseat with one of the Fishlifters. "Is it in yet?"

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

I thought we all agreed that no one would ever speak of those moments in the back seat? Whichever one of us it was...

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Dave started it!

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

I feel a lot of convention anxiety as well -- it's probably why I only go to Wiscon, and Potlatch or Corflu if they're in Seattle.

I think you should write the Mel Brooks parody of Corflu.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I started casting it in my mind, but I got stuck on who Mel Brooks would play. Ted White? Arnie Katz? Madeline Kahn as Geri Sullivan? Ah well, I've got a good sense of humor, but comedy writing is not my forte. Maybe I'll suggest it to Andy for his next radio play. (Talk about somebody who always has to perform for Corflu!)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I hope this was unrelated to my impression that, for the first time since we both joined LJ, we had more in-person interaction than we have online.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Ha! No, I thought something similar. I think LJ has helped me to get to know you better, and I thought our conversation at Corflu flowed from that.

Although I suppose it could be related to my anxiety. Nowadays there's always somebody to talk to. I can't sit in a corner quietly and listen to others talk. I've got to think of something to say myself, even if it's only phatic noise.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

As another person who has trouble being "on" all the time, when I'm at a high-social-pressure event, I always take time off to be by myself. Often I go off for a walk somewhere for a couple hours, or if I've got a particularly gripping book, just sit in my room and read.

Even when I chaired Mythcon, and could not drop from sight for extended periods, I would take breather intervals to curl up in a corner and decompress.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Or head off to a concert, eh? Well, maybe I need to think of strategies to maintain my own sanity (such as it is), at least at Corflus. Haven't really noticed the anxiety at other conventions. Not that I go to many, but I didn't notice it at Novacon or SFContario last November.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I didn't go to the concert to get away from the con! Staying at home as I was, I barely felt I was attending Corflu anyway. Though I have been known to do such things, both as a break and from the attractive power of the concert. At some large cons, the dinner and early evening hours are slow (unless there's a program item you particularly want), and coming back from a concert just as the parties are really warming up can be a perfect way to spend the evening.

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

I promised (or threatened) a continuation tonight of our multi-media conversation and somehow it seems to fit better here than in your overall con report, for all that I enjoyed that for both the things I knew about/shared and the things you got to do that I missed.

Personally, I had such a good time before the con (in a holiday phase and then a fans-gathering-but-not-conventioneering phase) that I expected the con itself to be a winding down, a real relaxacon I suppose. And on Friday night I just didn't feel up to finding the fun, and indeed on Sunday night the post-con feeling did kick in a little early. But overall I found Corflu reached further heights -- and, for what it's worth, the point at which I felt we'd reached critical mass was also when you and Tom appeared in the market. Which is partly why I squeaked.

How does that feeling you mentioned of needing to be on all the time compare to having been a fan fund delegate?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting question. At the time my TAFF trip was happening, I felt I was doing a pretty good job of being on pretty much all the time, but afterward I realized that I had still been my usual introverted self, which meant that at things like the Cambridge pubmeet, where I didn't know anybody very well (although there were people on hand like Tobes and Max who I had previously met), I was pretty quiet. Likewise the two panels I was on at Eastercon, where I felt intimidated and didn't have much to say. Yet I made new connections like mad everywhere I went, which I guess sort of stood in for "being on" in a performance sense.

Maybe the process of making new connections distracted me from my anxiety about entertaining people. At E Corflu Vitus I didn't make many new connections (although I did make a couple), so maybe I was more aware of the need to perform. Or of my "failures" to perform, which is just my normal introversion.

Or as I say, maybe I was just feeling a bit brittle in general. Work had been more stressful than usual in the lead-up to the trip. I was also having some strange issues with my body self-image, which could be an interesting side post about foreign mirrors and their unfamiliar reflections. (I always seem to look better in mirrors at home than elsewhere.) (Not that there's anything narcissistic about this subject!)

And it really is curious to wonder about why something like that meeting at the Alameda market felt like things clicking into place. Maybe it has to do with the fact that some very complicated logistics have come to fruition. It feels like a miracle somehow that such far flung friends can find each other that way.