What It's Like Being At GeeklyCon For The First Time

GeeklyCon is an annual conference hosted by GeeklyInc, the group that puts out the popular Dungeons and Dragons podcast, "Drunks and Dragons." I got into the podcast around this time last year when one of my friends who I play Destiny with recommended it. I'm not really one for podcasts but gave it a try and got hooked. They talked about the conference often on the podcast and binging the entire thing over the course of a couple months meant that I listened to their pitch for GeeklyCon quite often, often enough that I bought a ticket almost as soon as it came on sale for this year.

I will often travel alone and along my travels have learned how to quickly make friends, often temporary or single serving. GeeklyCon had been pitched as one of the friendliest meetups of a community and so I wasn't worried about having a good time. I even spent more time on Twitter, introducing myself to people in the community which is already very active online.

Day 1

My flight arrived at12:30pm and I high-tailed it to the hotel for a 1pm game of Dungeons and Dragons, my first ever. I had been invited via Twitter, by one of the podcast hosts, thanks to a popular hashtag for the conference where you introduce yourself. The game was a ton of fun and afterwards I settled into my hotel room and went for a walk. The conference has been moved to Columbus, Ohio for at least the next few years. Downtown Columbus left something to be desired when it came to food, and I later found out that much of my fellow conference goers also found the lack of options or things that are open past 3pm to be concerning. By the time I ate and changed my clothes it was time for the welcome ceremony of houses, which I was late to, and then the welcome party.

The welcome party was lovely. There were so many smiling faces and people welcoming each other back. As a new person I found myself with another GeeklyCon first timer for a while until her boyfriend arrived and then I was on my own again. It continued like that through the evening, I'd start to talk to someone and then someone they already knew would arrive and they would leave. The warmest welcome from one of the three people I already knew coming into this was from Christopher Badell, who makes cool board games for a living and I had met at the Geekly Pax East meetup earlier this year. Christopher found me in the crowd specifically to share some very fancy scotch with me because he remembered from our first meeting how much I enjoyed it.

I found myself selected to be one of the House Champions after volunteering on a whim and my event was the first night - a game of trivia which I managed second place in. One of the questions was about the popular show Silicon Valley and I was surprised to find later that evening when everyone was congratulating me for doing so well that no one watches that show! (I was the only one to get the question right). As the party winded down I kept trying to find more people to talk to, but found that the conversation faltered. It was so surprising to me since I've never had this problem before. I tried telling stories, asking questions, all the small talk under my sleeve and yet was getting no where.

Somehow I found myself standing and talking with some of, what turned out to be, the more popular people in the Geekly community. I didn't think anything of it really, they all seemed nice enough and so I followed them to an after party on my floor. The host, Emily, was so kind and continued to be so throughout the weekend. She kindly shared her drinks with me and tried to make sure I felt welcome. Still I found myself feeling like I had gotten to summer camp and put in a bunk with the kids who were already best friends. They were so nice but were more interested in catching up with each other then meeting someone new so eventually I gave up, left and went to bed.

Day 2

The beds in the hotel were so comfortable that I slept in a bit then went to grab breakfast from the only good place within walking distance of the hotel. I sat there for 45 minutes and got to meet some more Geekly community members, then headed to the panels that I wanted to see for the day. Finally ate, then took an Uber to the nearest liquor store. I did a drive-by of the gaming room, which is filled with so many board games that I had never seen before and tables filled with people playing them, but was too intimidated to try and join anyone.

That evening was the live show, where the podcasts perform live for an audience. I arrived early and

took an uber with some of the people I had met the day before and then saw again at breakfast. There was a group already there and they suggested playing a game. I found that they all had brought paper, pen, and whole dice sets with them to the live show which was great as we tried to start an rpg about bears stealing honey. It quickly fizzled out as we moved indoors and then for the rest of the evening the group more or less ignored me even though we sat next to each other. On the other side of me was another group with a gregarious couple, Nicholas and Grace, and Nick and I spent most of our time while waiting for the showing chatting.  At the end of the row was another woman (Stace) I had recognized from the day before and we spent some time talking as well. In front of me was the group that I had spent the night hanging out with the day before but they all more or less ignored me with the exception of a passing smile. The live show was great, I walked home with a group of people and finding myself alone in a sea of people in the lobby of the hotel I opted to go to bed instead of attempting again to try and make a friend.

Day 3

Again I slept in, same thing for breakfast but I attempted ordering in which was a mistake. A few panels after eating then it was time for dinner then karaoke. I told myself that this time I would make a better attempt at joining a game. I walked around karaoke talking with people in the halls and still
had the same problem where we'd talk for a while and it would be great and then they would turn back to their existing group of friends. Christopher was there again and we swapped flasks and talking about scotch some more. My voice grew horse from cheering on the singers of the evening. Finally I made my way to a game that someone shared on slack, looking for more players, called Drunk Quest. The game was a lot of fun and in return for sharing their beer with me I bought everyone pizza. By the time we were all too tired to go on it was 4:30am!

Day 4 (The Final Day)

Staying up playing games with such friendly people and having so much fun talking together started to renew my faith in GeeklyCon as an event. The standoffishness of so many of the people (all of them save one actually) and the refusal of people to actually take in new friends outside their circle had me thinking that I had it all wrong about the event. Where were all these loving community members that I had heard about on social media and via the podcast? Everyone seemed so focused on not going outside their zone that I felt like maybe I just wasn't the right kind of nerd for this event. Then I remembered what a good time I had actually playing with people that I became determined to make a concentrated effort to get into a game again.

After some cold pizza I attended a couple more panels, then sucked it up and went into the game room on a mission to play a game. I wandered the whole room twice before I found a table who was just setting up and reading rules. It turned out to be the same group of people that I sat next to at the live show, the half of the row that actually spoke to me, and so they welcomed me back with open arms. We played a party game that requires knowing your partner ("Squirm") and I thought oh boy

this is going to stink but it ended up being so much fun!

Soon enough the farewell party was under way and Christopher came to find me once again. We talked a little bit and he asked me if I had a good time and I told him the truth, that I didn't think I really fit in but I still had some fun. He said that he understood that it can be intimidating to be around some people who live and breath boardgames and sometimes finds the same while working the larger conferences. He said that this one was his favorite though because it was small enough that he could actually enjoy it instead of working the whole time. After learning about all the shows he goes to in a year, he said that he hoped to see me again at one of them and then we parted ways.

The final House competition happened and my house lost when our champion seemed to miss the final target. I made my way back to the group and found that we had merged with another one which included on of the guys I played D&D with on the first day (Paul)! It was such a good group and we were all sad to see the game room get shut down and us kicked out, summoning the end of the conference. We all hugged each other goodbye. I ended up hanging out outside the hotel watching all the other GeeklyCon participants slowly filter out in their little packs of friends. My flight wasn't for a couple more hours so I had plenty of time to kill and nothing to do with it. I ended up seeing Paul who also was heading to the airport and we ended up splitting a cab together.

We had such a good time hanging out in the cab and in the airport that we were both pretty bummed to find that we were in different terminals and had to part ways to wait for our flights alone. That was when I realized that this was what everyone had been talking about in all the GeeklyCon hype.

TL;DR

Going solo to GeeklyCon for the first time is like showing up to summer camp four weeks into it. So many people already have their friends, inside jokes, plans for the weekend ahead that I just always felt like I was a step behind. Even the very few people I met before hand were too busy doing their own thing to even have a drink together. And the first few people I met that first night would often look right through me even when we were near each other to search out one of the people from their group. I'm an extrovert, so it threw me for a loop to have conversation be so hard. Maybe it's because I'm just the wrong kind of nerd and know nothing about comics, board games, and D&D, but I expected to have a monumental weekend and walked away having had a great time, just not the epic time that people had spoken about.

That said, I will absolutely give it another go next year and play a lot more games next time, which seems like the best way to really make friends, and I'll also try to think of other ways to make first timers like me who don't come in with a ready-made clique to feel more welcome.