Tales from Meetup

My experience with Meetup.com – AKA: the adventures of being ostracized in a public gathering.

First, a little bit of back story… Meetup.com is a site where people in a certain spot on this vast planet can decide to make a virtual group – usually themed – which allows any other person in the area to join up. Once a group has formed, this themed group of humans makes plans to meet in person. Thus, the premise being, that you get to meet people with similar interests, and you get to do something you enjoy in the process.

I had first heard of group meet ups from my lovely friends Kim and Edicson, both of whom had moved to a new area, didn’t know that many people, then ended up having some pretty good success in making local friends. Similarly, Luuk used meetup.com and was able to hangout with people all the way in the Netherlands, by joining a themeless group of meetup.com people.

So, last summer I decided to try and meet some people. I’d follow the formula that seemed to be working for my comrades:

Sounded simple enough. It had fewer steps than making a frozen pizza. I thought I had this one in the bag; if there were an election for person-who-could-make-most-best-friends I would have been president. Or at the very least…prime minister.

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GUILD WARS

There comes a time in every little girls’ life when she looks back at all that she has done and wishes she had played more video games. It’s a tale as old as time.

Gather round boys and girls, its story time yet again. Today’s topic, I’d like to share with you the deep, passionate, fiery romance that I had with possibly the most entertaining game I had ever played in my life; Guild Wars.

I’d like to say, before I begin, that Guild Wars was my first MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game). Before I was introduced to this game I strictly played console games only…if you don’t count the minor computer games that I entertained myself with as a tiny, tiny child. Oh, I also had a run in with the SIMs and Rollercoster Tycoon…so, I guess I had dipped my toes into computer gaming, but not yet dunked my head in.  Guild Wars changed everything.

This is the story of my digital lover.

So the first time I remember hearing the words “Guild Wars” was from the mouth of one of my ex-boyfriends. He had just picked up the title and been immersed in it. A younger, yet still dashing, girl took notice of how he was totally ignoring her (so, apparently this just turned into a third person narration, roll with me). The debonair girl decided to investigate the situation.

Boyfriend at the time was very zoned out, he would only respond to her in short answers and without eye contact. An avid gamer herself, she knew whatever he was playing had to be pretty good. He briefly explained the premise of the game “Guild Wars” and allowed her to view some game play as he shot arrows around Tyria as a Ranger.

She was impressed. Very impressed. The game looked pretty good. Never having played an MMORPG herself she had her boyfriend explain further. However, senior year was wrapping up so she had better things to do than start a weirdo computer game…she had to apply to college.

So once her first year of college began, she became swamped with papers, assignments, and projects. She grew to love living in the smelly old library, but after a few weeks she developed a strained relationship with studying…a relationship whose bonds were quickly weakening.

So one day, when the urge to procrastinate hit her like a sack of bricks to the face, she suddenly had the inkling to try something…

GUILD WARS. No better time, than the procrastinating present, she thought to herself. So long as I don’t have to do mother fucking calculus, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.

And so, she opened Guild Wars and decided to log on…

What she quickly discovered was that not only was Guild Wars good…it was exciting and addictive as fuuuuuuuuu

So fast forward to a few hours later…then days…then, I don’t know, take a break woman! It was too late, she had become obsessed with Guild Wars for several weeks.

She knew what she had to do. She got her hands on a copy of Prophecies and the newly released Factions and never looked back.

Guild Wars was pretty damn amazing. It was something new, offered RPG gameplay she had never encountered before and a sweet ass sound track. She loved the shit out of that sound track…

Before you knew it, Guild Wars and the girl were inseparable.

It wasn’t long before that the girl’s friends noticed she was being really hermit-ish, always cooped up in her nerd cave for days on end.  Her friends were worried about her obsession. But you see, they didn’t understand. To them, all they saw was this:

But the girl, she saw more. She saw an entertaining, challenging, friendly, good looking…

Reading Material

I have gotten super picky about my reading material over the last couple of years. Maybe its because I’ve been forced to read so much content in nursing school that I’ve kind of lost touch with what it means to “read for pleasure.” Or maybe my taste in books has changed without me realizing it. Either way, I just don’t pick up books like I used to.

These days, when I pick up books, I’m looking to learn something. I’m not looking to be lectured. I repeat – NO LECTURES! I’ve gotten enough of those from my college education… I’m just searching for that text out there that will inspire discussion and even stir up my emotions. Books with a message, research texts about a topic that interests me, something that makes me question myself to better understand who I am. I realize, reading this back, that this sounds like a huuuuuuge feat, but truthfully for all of the content out there all it really takes is for me to read one thought provoking sentence to completely change the way I think.

TEDTalks are a great example of what I mean. I’m looking to learn something new, hear the point of view of different people, see a topic in a light that I hadn’t even thought of before. I actually own a couple of books written by authors who were TEDTalk speakers.

My selection process goes a little something like this:

Basically I’ve been guilty of the following:

• Selecting one book over another because of its price
• Selecting no books because of their price…
• Selecting one book over another because of how it looks
• Disregarding all books from a particular author that I have previously read and disliked; regardless of any change in writing style/topic selection that the author may have undergone

I feel guilty that these are incorporated in my selection process, but its the honest truth.

The even more honest truth is that I go to Barnes and Noble to read books for free while drinking coffee at their little café. I’m a full on moocher.

HOWEVER! When it comes to bloggers that I follow, all bets are off. Unlike books, I can enjoy following a blogger who has completely different interests than my own. I don’t even have to be blown away by their blog layout. Best of all, I don’t have to bring cash up front to view their posts. Books and blogs are like two different dimensions. I read several different blogs, and have done so for several years. Bloggers are great because although they are usually themed – style, cooking, technology, gaming – I get to indulge and share in the excitement of whatever they’re posting. And that’s something that a good majority of books can’t do, truly connect with their audience. I say majority, but I know there are plenty of books out there that completely tear through you and force you to see pieces of yourself that you may or may not have wanted to see. Bloggers more easily achieve this kind of reading catharsis for me, just because I get to know that person. I can interact with them. I can follow them through their own daily journeys and see their struggles as they parallel with my own. Some bloggers I use for an escape, since their lives are so different than mine. I don’t know if my blog does any of these things for other people…lol okay I know it doesn’t…but I do enjoy being a part of the blogging community. Even if it is just me ranting about things 90% of the time.

Okay so now I want to hear from you guys! This is a daily prompt, but I still want to know your answers.

How do you pick what blogs or books to read? What’s the one thing that will get you to pick up a book or click on a link every single time?