The Outsider

Even as a person who majored in the English language through my post-secondary education, I’m still a little fuzzy on the term “ironic,” so I’m not sure if it’s ironic or not that, as a co-creator of a website known for having developed a strong, tight-knit and supportive community, I myself feel that I’m generally terrible at being part of a community. Ironic or not, it does entertain me in a somewhat depressing, emotionally self-flagellating kind of way. [Ed. note: This is, of course, the True Way of the English major.]

We get questions sent to the podcast all the time from people who don’t know how to insert themselves into our GWJ community. From the outside looking in, this group of online strangers seems so comfortably close that it can seem impenetrable. While we say, “Just dive in and you’ll find a place,” which is very often true, I’ve also seen people who I know are trying to take that advice and yet seem to at the same time immediately either come off as trying too hard, or too aggressively, or too meek and self-deprecating, or who just don’t come in with the right tone. When that happens, I think a lot of people immediately feel, “Oh no. That didn’t work at all.” And more often than not, we never hear from those people again.

I sympathize with those folks, because in an odd way I know what they feel like. I look at the community for this site that I’ve put so much passion, energy and effort into over the years, and realize from time to time that while I was focused on all that stuff, what I forgot to keep doing was being part of the community. And now, in a very weird but tangible way, I look at the GWJ community and think to myself, “Man, looks like they’re having fun. I wish I was part of that community!”

I think of myself as really good at being an acquaintance, and pretty bad at being a friend. There are things about being a friend that just don’t come naturally to me, and while I do have friends (and I think they would largely say good things about me), I think every single one of the them has probably at some time thought to him or herself, “I wonder if Sean has forgotten I exist?”

This is, I think we can all agree, a pretty bad thing for your friends to think.

It’s not for lack of valuing friends, colleagues or communities. Part of the problem is that I spend a lot of time thinking that no one wants to hear from me unless I have specific value to offer. It is virtually impossible for me to say to someone, “Hey, let’s just chat because we haven’t done it in a while.” I need to go into that conversation with specific meaning and context. I need to be able to complete the sentence: “I want you to pay attention to what I am saying, because … .”

If I can’t get to that place, I operate from the assumption that my friends, despite the fact that I know they are my friends and therefore have provided evidence that suggests they just enjoy my company, only want to hear from me if there is important or specifically entertaining information to be conveyed. For example, I might say to my good friend Julian Murdoch, “I couldn’t help but notice your house is on fire and I thought you’d like to know.” That feels like an acceptable reason to trouble Julian with my presence.

This may seem oddly incongruous from someone who writes weekly missives for a publicly visible site. Here I am offering, unbidden in most cases, an array of barely credible thoughts on topics too many to name. The difference is — and I don’t entirely know how to break it to you — for most people reading this, we’re probably not friends. Doesn’t mean we couldn’t be if we knew each other (again, for most of you, we don’t). Which brings us full circle, because I feel like it’s that kind of perspective on the situation that is part of why I feel disconnected from the community.

In some ways, the only way I can share this kind of somewhat personal information with you, particularly since you haven’t asked me, is by having you be anonymous or at least detached. Wrap your brain around this conundrum: There are all kinds of things I would and have said in an article — things that are deeply personal and mean so much to me — which I wouldn’t trouble my friends with. In some bizarre and deeply troubled way, because we are not explicit friends, you have the opportunity to know me better than my own friends.

Lucky you.

All that takes me to an even weirder place, where I know in some ways the best, perhaps only way, I can successfully participate in the community of GWJ, is by convincing myself that I’m not actually part of that community.

I don’t like this thing about myself, mind you. And before you assume this is all related to some lack of self-confidence or undervaluing my worth, I wouldn’t recommend wasting a ton of time going down that road — There’s not a lot of meat on that bone. I just have a kind of eff’d up way of thinking about how human relationships work. I always figure people have a certain well of interest in being part of my life, and every interaction is either an opportunity to fill the well more full, or take something out. I’m well aware that just staying in touch and involved with people is part of filling the well, but in my backwards mind I always think of that kind of interaction as me hauling up a big, overflowing bucketful of water from an ever dwindling supply.

Disengagement reproduces parthenogenetically (Writers Note: the ed. is responsible for this word, I had to look it up). The more you disengage from people, the more likely you will keep disengaging from those people. Eventually the choice to not reach out to friends, colleagues or communities doesn’t feel like a choice. It feels like the thing everyone has agreed to do, and suddenly I feel not just that I shouldn’t reach out to these people — who still by the way mean a lot to me — but that I can’t.

It’s a messed up way of thinking about interaction, and I work to get past it where I can, but it does provide me room for sympathy and understanding when people talk about feeling like they can’t join in with a group. I have this group, right here, where arguably you could say I had a key role in helping the community to exist in the first place, and I don’t really know how to be a part of it. Which is funny because I respect it so much, appreciate its existence so much, and marvel so often at how generous and kind its members are.

It’s just that when I say that, there’s a part of me that feels like I am speaking as an outsider.

Comments

This article hits really close to home for me. I love my friends and would do anything for them...except initiate an exchange of small-talk with them. This leads to incredibly long spans of not communicating with them unless something happens and they need help. I've tried to fight through this a few times in the last twenty or so years with varying results.

I'm sure there's something in the DSM-5 that covers this behavior.

There are definitely several "cores" of goodjers that can be intimidating to break into. It's probably easiest to find your place in one that revolves around a specific game, then branch out from there. Playing multiplayer games with Goodjers is probably the easiest way for new people to find their place here. Slap & Tickles help immensely, but it's also very intimidating to go to your first one.

I find keeping people as acquaintances makes it easier to share things as well, and I'm absolutely terrible at keeping in touch or initiating conversations with people, so you're not alone in those respects.

Yeah, I can say this piece resonates with me. I detest small talk, and it hampers my relationship with my circle a great deal, especially with people who don't live near me. I only get excited about pointless conversations when I am in a room with someone. People who call me with nothing specific to say inevitably find the conversation stilted and awkward, and I feel bad for it. This is a different thing from a lack of participation in this forum, but I feel it's closely related.

EDIT: PS I really liked the article

I have a weird relationship with GWJ. I'm both a member of the community, and yet I also feel like I'm doomed to forever remain on the fringes of it. I mean, it took me 7 years to get my tag, and I never really got to the point where I felt like I was on the cool kids talking about the latest games or the jokiest of in-jokes. And yet, here I am, bogged down with my own set of quirky constraints, both a contributing member of the community and *still* an outsider. Stranger in a strange land indeed.

This is my favorite piece that you've written. Well done Sean.

At the core context of this, it couldn't begin to describe me more. The need to actually have something to say to initiate a conversation, or be part of the conversation means that even family have vast stretches of time go by without hearing from me, yet I don't really that much time has gone by at all because nothing interesting enough happened. Combine that with being innately shy, it's a rough combination for meeting new people, or getting to know them.

Stengah wrote:

Playing multiplayer games with Goodjers is probably the easiest way for new people to find their place here. Slap & Tickles help immensely, but it's also very intimidating to go to your first one.

It's the other way around for me, a couple meetups during PAX have been great, and easy to slip into. Jumping into multiplayer? Thats terrifying. To much concern over, will I have enough time to play to be worthwhile, will they care that I don't know how to do this, that I'm awful at multiplayer in this game? So far the multiplayer modes in every game I own just sit there untouched, not from lack of want, but from, well, I guess the best way to describe it is too many personal hangups.

I mean, I think you're all pretty alright.

Picture is lies! I expected an article about Greendale Human Beings. :p

Stengah wrote:

There are definitely several "cores" of goodjers that can be intimidating to break into. It's probably easiest to find your place in one that revolves around a specific game, then branch out from there. Playing multiplayer games with Goodjers is probably the easiest way for new people to find their place here.

Yep. Just jumping on the TF2 server a few nights a week is how I built most of my Steam friends list. And then a bunch of L4D/2 matches added more. Other games go through phases, Borderlands, and various MMOs that pop up from time to time.

Almost always having someone to play something with is the great part of being here. Heck, yesterday Dax was apparently in the mood for Castle Crashers, so a few minutes later, he and Shoal and I were playing coop- something I hadn't done for about 6 months, since the last post-Steam-Sale rush.

Infyrnos wrote:
Stengah wrote:

Playing multiplayer games with Goodjers is probably the easiest way for new people to find their place here. Slap & Tickles help immensely, but it's also very intimidating to go to your first one.

It's the other way around for me, a couple meetups during PAX have been great, and easy to slip into. Jumping into multiplayer? Thats terrifying. To much concern over, will I have enough time to play to be worthwhile, will they care that I don't know how to do this, that I'm awful at multiplayer in this game? So far the multiplayer modes in every game I own just sit there untouched, not from lack of want, but from, well, I guess the best way to describe it is too many personal hangups.

One of the best part of playing with most goodjers is that outside of a very few, they don't care if you're bad, or are also bad themselves. I do understand those hang-ups though. In Borderlands, for instance, I simply don't invite people to my games (they might say no, so I may as well not even ask is the stupid reasoning that always wins out), but I have zero problems with people joining me completely unannounced, even if it's just for a short while.

Stengah wrote:

There are definitely several "cores" of goodjers that can be intimidating to break into. It's probably easiest to find your place in one that revolves around a specific game, then branch out from there. Playing multiplayer games with Goodjers is probably the easiest way for new people to find their place here. Slap & Tickles help immensely, but it's also very intimidating to go to your first one.

Isn't this the same as any large enough group of people, they're going to form their own little sub-groups. GWJ isn't a uniform singular mass, and it's probably better for it.

I think you just described every relationship I've ever had with the exception of my wife.

Welcome introverts!

I am an introvert. That doesn't mean I can't talk to people. I'm a middle school teacher - I talk to kids all the time! However, starting up a conversation with someone, just to converse, well ... not so much. I went to my first GWJ Slap & Tickle at Pax Prime 2012, and it was a personal challenge. I had fun, and I liked putting faces to forum names, but I'm sure I would have the same apprehension the next time I go. Perhaps less so though.

At the same time, I know this is an amazing community, and I do feel welcomed. I certainly don't feel like an "insider" of this place, but I feel I've at least progressed to "not an outsider."

Scratched wrote:
Stengah wrote:

There are definitely several "cores" of goodjers that can be intimidating to break into. It's probably easiest to find your place in one that revolves around a specific game, then branch out from there. Playing multiplayer games with Goodjers is probably the easiest way for new people to find their place here. Slap & Tickles help immensely, but it's also very intimidating to go to your first one.

Isn't this the same as any large enough group of people, they're going to form their own little sub-groups. GWJ isn't a uniform singular mass, and it's probably better for it.

Yup, but it's why it can be intimidating to "just dive in and you’ll find a place." It can take a fair bit of lurking to figure out what place to dive in to, and how to best manage that dive. Sometimes the approach to one "core" doesn't work well at all for a different one.

Related: Who's going to be at GenCon? Is it worth organizing an S&T?

Stele wrote:

Picture is lies! I expected an article about Greendale Human Beings. :p

Just so you know, I'll never look at Empire's symbol the same way.

Man, right in the feels.

I look back at the PAX East 2013 S&T, and have two minds about it. I got to meet Amoebic, and spend (more) time with Tangle, KittyLexy, gravity, ccessarano, S0LID, and a few others.

And get hassled by Elysium and certis for being "that guy" who listens to the GWJCC at 1.5x speed

But at the same time, I know there was like 40 OTHER Goodjers that I just didn't have the balls to meet.

I suck at small talk, too. I need something to talk about, and unless your a meteorologist, the weather really doesn't count for me. That's why I've found it really easy to just jump into threads about games or topics that I'm interested in, and then branch out from there.

But as for Sean, you're certainly a special case in this community. I've got a feeling that just about anyone will openly accept you, certis, Demiurge, and the rest of the semi-regular GWJCC participants with open arms into any conversation. We already spend a few hours a week with you folks between the podcast and the front-page, and you're more than welcome to hang out and contribute to any thread in the forum.

wordsmythe wrote:

Related: Who's going to be at GenCon? Is it worth organizing an S&T?

I'll be there Wordy, and would love to tickle some slaps.

It's easy to get into the community as all that is needed is to know that Quintin Stone is the devil. Right there gets you halfway to the "in" crowd.

Seriously, the only way I know of to merge your way into the community is by participating. I don't mean mp or slap and tickles, those are great for getting to know a handful of people, but by participating in the forums enough that your personality and likes and dislikes shine through. One or two posts a month isn't necessarily going to create that persona unless they're in a specific thread or genre. That's my advice for people who have a hard time feeling like they fit in or are heard. Yeah, you might not get the amount of responses a post by Certis will, but eventually you'll learn about other people's interests and they yours.

I wish I had a persona and were a part of this community.

Coldstream wrote:

I wish I had a persona and were a part of this community. :D

This is the one I'd recommend
http://worldofsven.com/blog/wp-conte...

"Dive right in" is exactly the advice I took in participating here at GWJ. I suppose you could say that it's been, er, "effective."

LarryC wrote:

"Dive right in" is exactly the advice I took in participating here at GWJ. I suppose you could say that it's been, er, "effective."

Anyone who has argued with Larry about a video game will never forget him.

Or with him in P&C. Brutal.

My first thought reading the pieces was,"is this written by a manager of approximately age 40 or by a teenager undergoing a typical teenage existential crisis (and who likely doesn't know that term)?" BUT once I reached Aristophan's comment about our introverted ness, it became palatable because this article more than anything I can recall explains our tension to both connect and avoid. Sure, I and most commenters here and probably many listeners feel the same way as Sean, but I believe I have already accepted my unwillingness to practice and become adept at small talk, that my contribution to conversation is as an analyst, as someone sometimes with a bit of wisdom, as the second guesser, sometimes as the storyteller. Maybe the mild disconnection I feel sitting with relatives when I don't have a functional, as Sean discusses, purpose for exchanging some information, just hasn't accumulated to such an extent in me as must have for him to write this?

I find it's incredibly easy to say nothing of any consequence and commit to no kind of relationship in IRC. Y'all should hop in!

Aristophan wrote:

Welcome introverts!

I am an introvert. That doesn't mean I can't talk to people. I'm a middle school teacher - I talk to kids all the time! However, starting up a conversation with someone, just to converse, well ... not so much. I went to my first GWJ Slap & Tickle at Pax Prime 2012, and it was a personal challenge. I had fun, and I liked putting faces to forum names, but I'm sure I would have the same apprehension the next time I go. Perhaps less so though.

At the same time, I know this is an amazing community, and I do feel welcomed. I certainly don't feel like an "insider" of this place, but I feel I've at least progressed to "not an outsider."

So true about being introverted. I'm certainly introverted, but I'm really pretty good at getting to know people to a certain point, at least. I think that if you are a middle school teacher (respect! That's a tough job!) that you are a good listener and have a good sense of what others are experiencing. You have to have that to be a good teacher. I'm also a teacher, but for a different age group. Teaching lets me get the social contact I need, but lets me also control the degree to which I'm in contact with others. That's very important to me.

This is a really good community. Perhaps many of us are introverted, and so the internet forums are a comfortable way for us to communicate. That's certainly how it is for me. It's so easy to feel like an outsider regardless of how we are actually valued by others in the community. But the degree of respect I've seen in the forums makes me see this community as a very positive one. That is worth its weight in gold, particularly for one focused on gaming.

I really hope this post encourages lurkers to contribute. I think that those of this group that are contributing have more in common with you than you might think.

And about LarryC - so true! A very smart guy whose posts are always thought-provoking!

While I also +1 the personal sentiments in this article, I have to say that I've found GWJ to be the easiest online community to be part of for this exact personality type. If there is an inside joke or conversation, most people here are happy to explain it instead of holding it over you. Similarly, I've never been turned down to join a game or a VoIP server, no matter how noob I might be, or how sporadically I might be around. So, for people that have limited personal time and hate putting up posts that say "hey, I got a new shirt", this is actually a fantastic place to be.

So, while I will eternally be a coffee grinder here, this is the place I WANT to be, and I am grateful to the folks that keep this place running.

The ability to simultaneously be a part of something and also an outside observer of that thing isn't a necessarily bad; it's just how some of us process. We humans have this tendency to categorize, compartmentalize, separate, classify, and file away our observations, so it's no surprise to me that we apply that to ourselves and our interpersonal relationships.

The more you disengage from people, the more likely you will keep disengaging from those people. Eventually the choice to not reach out to friends, colleagues or communities doesn’t feel like a choice. It feels like the thing everyone has agreed to do, and suddenly I feel not just that I shouldn’t reach out to these people — who still by the way mean a lot to me — but that I can’t.

This really spoke to me. As someone who's extremely introverted and prone to (mild/moderate) social anxiety, I see this in myself. It can sometimes feel as though, due to the way I handle socialization, the penalty is these barriers I've put up between myself and the groups that I care about.

I often feel as though I'm this outsider here, that I'm just kind of leaping into the fray as this person who isn't a part of the group but --eh, f*ck it-- I'm going to act like I am anyway and maybe no one will notice. I know how absurd this sounds. Objectively, I know I'm a GWJ'er and I'll identify as such with others, but in my heart and head I'll always feel like I'm trying to fake it until I make it.

At PAXeast2013, at the Westin S&T, some of you came out and said some drunken, wonderful, heartfelt things that made me feel welcome. I ran into the ladies room because I thought I was going to cry like a big, dumb baby. I didn't. I just kind of sat in the stall with my hands balled in little fists under my chin grinning like an idiot at my shoes because I kind of finally felt like maybe I'd made it.

For every person who posts on GWJ, there's dozens of people who don't. I know this because I've gone to cons and S&T's, met some you folks and played games with you. And there are even more of you who don't go out to those but want to take part here, somehow.

Chatter with us in irc. Post in the safety of the picture thread, the love/loathe threads, pretty much anything in the Everything Else forums where general shared interests can be shared.

Lurkers, newbies, and scaredy-cats like me; this little corner of the internet is magical. Seriously. You're already one of us, you're already welcome.

I kind of got lost in the feels, there. So anyway.

Another part of what I was going to mention is that we so often feel like socially we've created these agreed-upon distances we've set up between each-other. It's hard to remember that these are constructs, that they're ideas. And we put so much weight on these ideas that we're afraid that by crossing those barriers and getting close we're somehow violating things like space, privacy, and the wishes of other people. Often what keeps us wrapped up in our separated lives isn't that we want to put distance between each other so much as it can often be other things in life (work/family/etc) that draw us apart.

Not to be a downer again, and not looking (or wanting) sympathy, but I had a lot of people very close to me die within a really short span of a few years not too long ago, and it made me realize that there is such a thing as spending too much time keeping a respectful distance. I think we're can sometimes be a little bit of the mindset that, if they wanted to see more of us, they'd reach out. But if everyone's doing that, then no one's doing it, and everybody loses. Does that make sense?

In my opinion, a simple truth of life is that the meaning to life is to love, and it manifests in very small and significant ways. Engaging in the act of shared experiences, ideas, and interests with the rest of humanity is one way to achieve that.

So ah...I guess I went and got lost in the feels, again. I guess that's okay.

On diving in, I think that one of the good things about GWJ is that we don't allow "Hi, I'm new here" or introduction threads, you have to dive in and you get noticed by posting good stuff. If anything, it's like any other discussion that you need to post something that people will respond to, bring something interesting to the table and that's it.

Sean "Elysium" Sands wrote:

In some bizarre and deeply troubled way, because we are not explicit friends, you have the opportunity to know me better than my own friends.

As I peek in through the windows of your house at night, I've often thought the same thing. I mean, if we were actually friends, I wouldn't have to sneak around at night looking in through open blinds. And hugging myself tightly. WHY WON'T YOU LOVE ME?

More seriously, introversion (or high-functioning schizoid personality, not to be confused with Schizoid Personality Disorder) is an endless conflict between the desire for meaningful intimacy (emotional, mental, and/or physical) and an instinctive mental defensive mechanism of withdrawal to avoid becoming subsumed (which may or may not be subconscious) by a larger whole. I imagine that most introverts have felt (as I so often have) an almost physical sense of need to withdraw from a loud party or supremely extroverted person, whereas an extrovert wants nothing more than to dive into the mix and become lost in it. The heightened anxiety felt by an introvert at the prospect of being consumed into a larger community is exhausting, hence our need to withdraw and be alone to "recharge".

And thus we come to our little community. One can, realistically, contribute as much or as little as one wishes. Some reading these words are frequent posters. Other never do more than 'lurk' (how's that for a pejorative term?) and thus never make their presence known. To the sensitive individual, entering a community is like having the Eye of Sauron turn upon him/her, with judgement following thereafter. That our particular community-comprised eye is far more benevolent than others can only mitigate some of the inevitable anxiety that arises.