Joichi's party on the 7th was a fun time. It took place at Casablanca in Old Town, a middle-eastern restaurant...

For me, it was yet another strange experiment in meeting people I've talked to and gotten to know over the net. The only people I recognized were Mena Trott of Movabletype, and Joichi, so I was forced to practice my shiny new contact-making überskillz and just walk up to strangers and introduce myself. Crazy.

The funny thing about all that is that I had fun. I always hated parties when I was a kid, thinking that all the wining and dining my parents did was superficial and forced. I thought that no one was being genuine, that no one at their parties was interesting, et cetera.

Welp, I've found that for the most part, I was probably wrong. It merely seemed to be that way because the protocols employed to converse in such venues were so utterly different than those I ascribed to at the time. Clothing, manners, speech, and topic selection were so alien to me that I just didn't understand what was going on. I was a rational mind, and they were social minds. I didn't grok the protocol.

But now I've learned that by observing the basic protocol of interaction, I can have meaningful and fulfilling interactions with non-rational people in these situations. I can even talk about interesting things, but I just have to make sure that (as per the protocol) I introduce the subject with an appropriate segue, I don't go into too much detail, and I allow the conversation to move off that topic freely.

I know some of you will be reading this and rolling on the floor laughing, but this is actually the way it is for me. I'm pretty amazed I've actually been able to learn these protocols well enough to reach this level of comfortability. Although, when you think about it, it's almost like learning a language, which I've learned how to do pretty well too...

Fun time Joichi -- have to do it again sometime. ;)