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Never Been Met

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01:38 / 18.04.03

I've never been to a Barbemeet. This isn't surprising, as I'm stateside. The closest other Barbelithers are in NYC, and everytime there was a meet there, I was either too broke to go or couldn't make it for another reason. Now that I've moved up state, the chances of my making one are even slimmer.

To be honest, I really feel like I'm missing something. (N.B.- This is not a plea for someone to move to Albany so I can have a Barbemeet here, or groveling for airfare, it's just an observation.) Barbelith has been part of my life since I was a freshman in college, maybe before, I don't even remember. Is this true for any of the others among you who've never been to a meet? For those of you who have, were things on the board different for you after your first Barbemeet? What was it like meeting some of the others for the first time? Tell me? Please?

Tryphena Absent

01:54 / 18.04.03

My first Barbelith real time was really scary but I did spend most of it sitting opposite Haus (who spent half the afternoon detailing exactly what was wrong with Gaiman fans in scathing, sarcastic but amusing tones) and discovering that my mental image of everyone was frighteningly accurate! Perhaps the oddest thing was trying to store ridiculous numbers of names in my head and I generally find that I have to meet people at least three times before I remember their suit and actual name, it's extremely embarrassing to stand opposite a person and know their face but not their identity. Particularly when they enlighten you as to who they are and you have about twenty thousand things to say to them all of a sudden!

01:55 / 18.04.03

i have yet to meet any of them, despite being within twenty feet of at least four of them recently.

i broke my internet-to-real-life-meet cherry recently with a lovely young chap called mike and his girlfriend of the time, jess.
we met in a bookshop called foyles, i believe it is the oldest in london.

we had coffee.
we talked shit.

it certainly enhanced the fun we have online together on a different forum to this one, so i can only imagine it would enhance the experience here as well.

where are you?

Lilly Nowhere Late

05:04 / 18.04.03

To be honest, there is something to the idea of not meeting your
imaginary friends/acquaintances in real life. I reckon the advent of
the internet really is putting a bizarre hitch in the process of world
gregariation(yes i make up words when i need a new one) and that hitch
is fairly history changing. Strangely, nearly my whole London life
exists around a circle of previously imaginary people. And its a good
thing. So I suppose I contradict myself; nevertheless, I do think a
bit of mystery in one's life is desirable. Having your imagination
based society turned real is one way reality creeps up and spoils some
of the fun.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:19 / 18.04.03

I love meeting "imaginary" people. But I always have the same problem with names as Anna. Most people have actually been pretty much how I imagined, apart from Haus, who was nicer. My first one was a demo against the war in Afghanistan, and I was bricking it before I got there- what if we hate each other? That'd ruin the board for me! But it was great. It's nice to put faces to the names when you're reading, too. But sometimes the mystery's pretty cool as well.

10:15 / 18.04.03

Ah, the joys of barbemeeting:

1. Hard enough for me to match the faces to fictionsuits but the added complication, as pointed out above, of matching real names to Lith names to faces is too much for my senescent cerebella. I just smile and say "you're so much more attractive in the flesh than I imagined", indiscriminately.

2. Everyone is so much more attractive in the flesh than I imagined. And, in the case of Haus, Illmatic and sleazenation, so much taller too.

3. I have great difficulty hearing what people say to me in pubs usually but I find I can usually get by if I just smile and say "you're so... etc."

4. It is remarkable that, when we foregather in a public place, all assembled go into huggle /schnoogle mode throughout and there is no snarkiness on display at all. Maybe I've just been lucky but I suspect not.

5. Yes, having met some people will forever alter your conception of their fictionsuit but I have still only met a small percentage of 'Lithers, so doesn't make a huuuuuge difference in online interaction. And I have met some people whom I liked in 'Lithtown but like even more irl and would choose to spend lots more time with.

shortfatdyke's farewell do at the Black Cap and the first big antiwar march in February were both great examples of the breed, IMO. But I have yet to darken the doorstep of the infamous Jorene Celeste ...one day!

pointless and uncalled for

10:25 / 18.04.03

The first time that I meet anyone from here there is a very predictable order of events.

I will say "I'm potus" and then there will be this look that comes across the persons face that is always the same and not really that good. It worries me to a certain extent that I managed to make the impression that I did. Hopefully first impressions aren't that lasting.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:22 / 18.04.03

potus- quit whingeing. We haven't killed you or anything, have we? Stop fishing for compliments!

I've yet to see a really snarky meet yet. They're always lovely.

11:38 / 18.04.03

No-one has ever met me except for Deva, and it is possible she imagined it.

However, I have observed most of the London lithers when they had a meeting at the Jorene Celeste once.

I was upstairs dressed as a wombat and spied on them from behind a rubber plant.

12:50 / 18.04.03

...and there was me not wanting to draw attention to the giant wombat I saw concealed behind the plant for fear of the other 'lithers bringing my sanity into question.

The first for me was Carnival and Archive's leaving bash. I was a little worried about meeting new people, but everyone seemed nice and friendly and put me at my ease. I've been to a fair few meets since then, but still have trouble with remembering names.

13:08 / 18.04.03

I reckon it can seriously change how people interact with you. The whole textual medium is a bit short of all the nuances that make a person obviously lovely - as most Barbeloids are. I think that people who have met tend to get on more easily.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:53 / 18.04.03

It does make it easier to tell what someone's intention behind a particular statement is if you can picture the look on their face while they're saying it.

13:57 / 18.04.03

Actually there have been a couple of tense Barbemeets, but tensions were a result of offline problems intersecting with the Barbelith group rather than anything to do with people not getting on with each other, I think. I can't recall a recent one where any tensions have affected the gathering as a whole...

14:43 / 18.04.03

I was posting on Barbelith off and on for two years before I really met anyone from the board (kookymojo and betty woo aside).

Everyone pretty much looked like I had pictured them, especially sleazenation, who I thought everyone would look vaguely like. I did get B.I.P's gender wrong in my mind though. And people thought I was Knodger for the first few seconds, which was odd. I could never remember everyone's name, and I still can't remember quite a few it seems. Reading through the 'What's in a Name?' Thread I keep thinking "I met Haus/etc.! What was their name?"

First time I met Haus, he said "I'm Haus", to which I unfortunately replied "You Bastard!" He didn't seem to mind though...

Ever since then, and the other meets I made it to in London, Barbelith has been more fun. Meeting people IRL makes their posts more interesting online...? I really want to make it to another one sometime.

14:46 / 18.04.03

Postscript: It was only after I had gotten to the Jorene Celeste that I realised that I had no idea what anyone looked like. I was debating between approaching one table in the back (that turned out to be the Flurries), and another closer to the bar. Once Cherry Bomb showed up at the latter table, (the meet was for her return to London I think?) I figured that had to be her, due to the flaming red hair, and yes!they were Barbeloids.

Murray Hamhandler

14:53 / 18.04.03

Was within blocks of meeting Persephone once, but missed out due to a broken down "L". Did speak briefly on the phone, though. And got a sweet t-shirt from her.

Will soon be meeting up w/Rage as soon as I get my shit together and call her already (sorry, Rage...).

Was supposed to meet up w/kevin at one point. Don't know what happened there. Both he and Rage now live here in Bloomington. We should be having Barbe-blow-outs weekly, I tells ya.

I'm looking forward to breaching the bubble. There are many here I would like to meet in person, but it just doesn't seem terribly practical.

I suspect that a bit more emotional investment takes place once one knows other 'Lithers off-board. Am I in the ballpark here?

15:26 / 18.04.03

It was only because you introduced yourself by your first name instead of your fictionsuit, honest!

I can tell that really rankles... (don't blame you mind)

16:24 / 18.04.03

Yeah, I left the house and everything... now I stay at home moldering in the same clothes that I wore to meet you and expressing my disappointment into my lovely young ward whom I shall loose upon the world to break the hearts of men.

*shakes fist*

17:00 / 18.04.03

I've met more than a few members here (some since gone on to brighter pastures and greener tomorrows).

The one thing I remember best is showing Flyboy that I was wearing white socks. Hee! It's the little things that please me.

In London, it was interesting interacting with Lovely Young Things while giving piggyback rides to a seven-year-old. I liked the incongruity.

marmalade cooper/quizkid looked the least like I expected (but we're still in touch via email, which is nice). And Kali was definitely very much herself and then some.

But the most fun was hosting Kooky Mojo when she was seeing America. I only wish I'd realized the Loxahatchee boardwalk actually went into a cypress hammock before we went there (and skipped the boardwalk... "Looks boring," I said).

I think I'm more comfortable doing that sort of thing because I was on local BBSes before I ever had an email account. Some of my best friends I met online first, and then sized up in downtown West Palm. ("Is that really Necromonitor? THAT'S Mr.Industrial??") Fun stuff.

I'm all for it.

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

17:29 / 18.04.03

i have met a few lithers, antler boy (now boy in a suitcase if im not mistaken) and cameron stewart at the san diego comicon a few years back, there were others there i wanted to meet, but missed.

as far as bar hopping i ALMOST met mononoke about 2 years ago when she was in sante fe, i live in albuquerque about 40 minutes away, but our trip ho goth adventure was cancelled.

but yes, i live in the middle of miles of desert and the nearest lithers i believe are 2 states away

Hattie's Kitchen

18:11 / 18.04.03

The only lithers I've met are Stoatie and Felicia, and only 'cos I work in the same place as them...I've tried to get to a few meets but work always got in the way, what with working weekends and just my general crap timing...I'm sure I'll make it sooner rather than later but that won't stop it being daunting...I've been on the receiving end of some snarky comments on the board and I think it would be good to meet those people in the flesh, 'cos then they'll realise that I'm quite nice and non-snarky IRL.

But then I'll totally flip out and kill them...

Regrettable Juvenilia

21:37 / 18.04.03

I don't remember the white socks, but I do remember the Aquaman top.

Look, I'd talk about how knowing people IRL affects Barbelith, but I wouldn't know where to start or stop...

22:15 / 18.04.03

I've had virtual friends for a very long time--I spent a lot of time playing around on dialup BBSes ten or twelve years ago. I also played way too much EverQuest for a couple of years, and had virtual friends that way (which was way weird, because then there's an actual visible persona that you associate with the person, that is guaranteed to look nothing like them). But, those were both *chat* in addition to postings... I think that you get more of a sense of a person, even online, when you are having a realtime conversation. They're both text, but they're such different types of text. So I'm inclined to guess that personal meetings change board-life more than in my previous experience.

Uh, what was the question? Oh, right: I've met grant when he was in LA, I haven't met Rage but I think we were in the same town for a month or so before she ran off to have adventures, and at the San Diego Comic Con of 2000(?) I met kookymojo, Ulysses (who may have changed into someone else but I missed it), and Cameron Stewart. Possibly other people--it was a reasonably vodka-intensive excursion.

22:31 / 18.04.03

I wished I'd gone to Flyboy's birthday meet - it sounded really fun, and I can see the value of meeting people IRL, and then knowing who they are online. I recently wrote about this in my blog, little extract here: It struck me that the person I am online, for example here, is not the same as the person I am if you are face to face with me and giggling. The opportunity to censor yourself, present yourself in a certain manner, adjust phrases or change words is available in any textual conversation, something not present in real life. Things meant with a laugh in the throat or a smile in the eye can so easily be misconstrued when written down and presented without any of the body language necessary to make the comment complete.

BTW, Mazarine, every time I read the title of this thread, I misread it as 'never been kissed!'

22:32 / 18.04.03

I only tend to meet lithers by accident or through the malign intent of others. Ficsuits have the annoying tendancy to move in with a friend of mine, or employ me or reveal hitherto unknown links to one of my limited circle of aquaintances. And then turn out to be lovely.

I keep meaning to attend a Barbemeet proper, to the point of checking bus routes, work schedules and psyching myself up, but then something gets in the way, like a shift at work, flu, it rains or it's too sunny to leave the flat. It doesn't help that I'm a complete coward in respect to strangers and, like Xoc, tend to miss large portions of conversations in pubs. Maybe next time. So far, everyone I have met has turned out to be snugglicious to extremes (possibly scarily so for them) so to anyone I have bumped into and then seemed to ignore, cower or generally hid in a corner from, my deepest apologies.

Tryphena Absent

22:37 / 18.04.03

--I spent a lot of time playing around on dialup BBSes ten or twelve years ago. I also played way too much EverQuest for a couple of years, and had virtual friends that way

Tommy are you my brother?

23:23 / 18.04.03

grant: The one thing I remember best is showing Flyboy that I was wearing white socks. Hee! It's the little things that please me.

The pedestal you have been sitting upon heretofore was a mighty one, grant, but you have no idea how many happy little fantasies came tumbling down like the Walls of Jericho at the mention of those "white socks".

If it's any comfort, those who were priviliged to have met you upon your (and their) travels still brag about same to us unworthy, unexposed types. Myself, I wouldn't be able to take sufficient comfort from that fact to counterbalance the white socks (gasp.....)

23:37 / 18.04.03

But white socks are so easy...

...what do you know, Husb is talking about us going to London at the end of May. But that means I would have to be in a plane.

23:43 / 18.04.03

Yay! Yay! Yay! La Persephone in da UK, big big barbebash to celebrate and be introduced into the Presence! End of May though, several of us will be in Amsterdam...

23:56 / 18.04.03

When you are going to be in Amsterdam? If we do this, it would be May 24-June 1.

pointless and uncalled for

00:24 / 19.04.03

I never fish for compliments, I spear them ninja style. I do however remember the occasion when BiP was too scared to introduce me to Haus for nfear the world would explode.

Whoot I say, whoot.

00:56 / 19.04.03

Odd (and, to be honest, slightly worrying) thing about Barbelith: I've known some of the posters here for longer than the majority of people I'm in regular contact with IRL, but I've still only met one of you - Ellis, exactly a year ago. He was pretty much as I'd imagined, probably due to the fact that I'd had a lot of online, off-Barb contact with him aswell.

Much as I keep meaning to attempt to make a meet (especially a Brumlith one, seeing as I'm geographically in the Midlands cell and the number of people present makes them seem a lot less intimidating than the ones in London), something holds me back. Mainly it's that I like the idea of keeping this place entirely separate from real world stuff, but there's also the whole 'hanging out with workmates' aspect - you may get on with them perfectly well in one situation, but try to take that relationship outside of the confines it's normally held in and it all goes terribly, terribly wrong.

I also like to pretend that distance gives me an air of the mysterious. "E. Randy Dupre? Hmmm... could he be Magwitch to Barbelith's Pip?"

The problem, of course, is that this suspicion could be true in a way other than that intended.

01:38 / 19.04.03

I feel like the "thread killer" of Barbemeets. Far as I can tell the vast majority of Barbefolk I've met no longer post here.

For this reason, and because I post almost exclusively in the comics forum, I don't think meeting people offline has affected my relationship with them online. In fact, I probably know them better offline.

Matthew Fluxington

01:39 / 19.04.03

I've met a fair few NYC-area Barbelith folks. It's been a good thing, for the most part. Meeting people from online wasn't new to me prior to Barbelith, so it's never been a big deal for me. I'd definitely like to come over and meet the London/Brighton people some time, but I don't really have the money at the moment. I'll hopefully get to do it sometime in the next year and a half, god willing.

Hopefully by then Mr. Dupre will be willing to come down and visit.

01:45 / 19.04.03

Oops. Forgot to mention that if I wasn't staying in Ottawa this summer, I would have been arriving in London at the end of May. Bah! My brother, an occasional lurker, will be taking my place over there, and has expressed an interest in going to any meets that might be happening while he travels around. I'll get him to pretend he's me.

First Barbemeet? Walking Betty Woo to the subway station.

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