(no subject)
Mar. 5th, 2003 12:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walbournOne of my personal goals for this year is to get out and make more friends in the Seattle area. When I first moved here, I was dating someone in Portland and was focused on a new job. Therefore I spent most of my weekends going down to Portland or keeping busy with gaming conventions and events. Since I wasn't sure if I'd be moving to Portland or if Andrea might come up to Seattle or want to relocate elsewhere, I didn't put as much effort into getting to know people locally. During that time I did get to see a lot of WA/OR and met people at conventions all over the place, but really only had one person I knew locally to hang out with.
As such, I've been going to poly dinners, attending pagan discussion groups and a few rituals, going to parties I get invited to, and even placed a few personal ads on various sites. It's taking quite a while, but I feel I'm making some progress in recent months in having more social contact outside of coworkers and gaming buddies. I know that for me being happy requires not feeling isolated. I'd like to develop a romantic relationship with someone, which requires actually having people in my life. Go figure.
I guess I've always been a bit of an 'outcast' socially since I was very young. My family was military and we moved around a lot. In school I didn't fit into any clique. Because of my changing of schools on a regular basis, I was only able to get into a few Honors classes and bounced between the 'gifted' student classes and the 'regular' student classes so I didn't really even fit into the 'smart kids' group. After a while, I embraced being a 'misfit' and have chosen my own path. Sometimes it has been really hard going, other times it has been greatly rewarding and brought me experiences I would never have had otherwise.
I do think the 'outcast' aspect is still a part of my life. I run in a lot of 'alternative social circles', but I don't fully fit into any of them. I'm a computer 'geek', but I really prefer to leave that in my professional life and not spend a lot of free time outside of work dealing with or babbling about computer technology and software. I consider myself pagan, but 'non-practicing' pagan is probably more accurate; the world-view is very appealing to me and fits my morality and perspective, but I'm not a religious person by nature and don't feel a strong need for ritual or spiritual connection beyond what I feel in my daily life. I have a polyamorous perspective, but don't really want multiple serious relationships and certainly don't fit into the BDSMer or swinger subculture that has a lot of overlap with the poly folks. I really enjoying gaming, and I can obsesses with the best of them, but there are a lot of socially challenged individuals in the same group which I certainly don't identify myself with. Once upon a time, I enjoyed being in the SCA but not being a political personality I didn't really do more than 'dabble' at it. I love women singer/songwriter musicians, but somehow don't quite fit into the 'lesbian' lifestyle.
The problem with being a 'strange fish' (as a friend recently referred to me) is that I don't have a well-identified group of like-minds to connect with. I'm hard-pressed to easily identify myself strongly with any of the 'sub-groups' I spend time in. Certain aspects of each of them I find rewarding, other aspects keep me from feeling comfortable totally embracing them.
In the past, I've been lucky enough to find compatible people, but it is much easier to meet people in a large school where new people come into your life on a regular basis. Since I've always worked at small companies, work is not a good avenue to meet new people, and obviously many of my hobbies don't work well for that either (single well-adjusted gamer girls are a somewhat rarified commodity and not a lot of women at an Indigo Girl concert are looking to date a guy--even one who know knows all the lyrics). Starting a social circle 'from scratch' here in Seattle greatly limits the number of new people I run into on a regular basis...
Where does a 'strange fish' find a mate who isn't a nutball or likely to think I'm something I'm not?
As such, I've been going to poly dinners, attending pagan discussion groups and a few rituals, going to parties I get invited to, and even placed a few personal ads on various sites. It's taking quite a while, but I feel I'm making some progress in recent months in having more social contact outside of coworkers and gaming buddies. I know that for me being happy requires not feeling isolated. I'd like to develop a romantic relationship with someone, which requires actually having people in my life. Go figure.
I guess I've always been a bit of an 'outcast' socially since I was very young. My family was military and we moved around a lot. In school I didn't fit into any clique. Because of my changing of schools on a regular basis, I was only able to get into a few Honors classes and bounced between the 'gifted' student classes and the 'regular' student classes so I didn't really even fit into the 'smart kids' group. After a while, I embraced being a 'misfit' and have chosen my own path. Sometimes it has been really hard going, other times it has been greatly rewarding and brought me experiences I would never have had otherwise.
I do think the 'outcast' aspect is still a part of my life. I run in a lot of 'alternative social circles', but I don't fully fit into any of them. I'm a computer 'geek', but I really prefer to leave that in my professional life and not spend a lot of free time outside of work dealing with or babbling about computer technology and software. I consider myself pagan, but 'non-practicing' pagan is probably more accurate; the world-view is very appealing to me and fits my morality and perspective, but I'm not a religious person by nature and don't feel a strong need for ritual or spiritual connection beyond what I feel in my daily life. I have a polyamorous perspective, but don't really want multiple serious relationships and certainly don't fit into the BDSMer or swinger subculture that has a lot of overlap with the poly folks. I really enjoying gaming, and I can obsesses with the best of them, but there are a lot of socially challenged individuals in the same group which I certainly don't identify myself with. Once upon a time, I enjoyed being in the SCA but not being a political personality I didn't really do more than 'dabble' at it. I love women singer/songwriter musicians, but somehow don't quite fit into the 'lesbian' lifestyle.
The problem with being a 'strange fish' (as a friend recently referred to me) is that I don't have a well-identified group of like-minds to connect with. I'm hard-pressed to easily identify myself strongly with any of the 'sub-groups' I spend time in. Certain aspects of each of them I find rewarding, other aspects keep me from feeling comfortable totally embracing them.
In the past, I've been lucky enough to find compatible people, but it is much easier to meet people in a large school where new people come into your life on a regular basis. Since I've always worked at small companies, work is not a good avenue to meet new people, and obviously many of my hobbies don't work well for that either (single well-adjusted gamer girls are a somewhat rarified commodity and not a lot of women at an Indigo Girl concert are looking to date a guy--even one who know knows all the lyrics). Starting a social circle 'from scratch' here in Seattle greatly limits the number of new people I run into on a regular basis...
Where does a 'strange fish' find a mate who isn't a nutball or likely to think I'm something I'm not?
