Hi! Russ Allbery: > u writes: > >> Now, I've read in at least one answer here that it makes people get out >> of their comfort zone to talk to other humans. (I think everybody has >> had at least one moment in their life where they felt something similar. >> Hopefully, this is not an all-time state!) Still, I believe that we are >> social beings and only through talking & working together can we achieve >> great things. > > A minor caveat here: for some people, it's a minor worry or discomfort to > meet other people and then it has a huge payoff, and for other people, > it's a larger emotional drain that can accumulate.
Understood. I respect personal boundaries and limits, and I have had periods in life where I did not want much contact with other humans either (for other reasons than shyness). This is perfectly valid :) My reasoning behind what I wrote is also that for me, as a woman, not shy & rather social, attending such conferences was very intimidating at first, because there were mostly white male people not talking to me, some of them were assuming I was somebody's girlfriend or some project's graphic designer (hi, one of our former DPLs!), other might have been intimidated themselves. This led me to try to first say hi to all the women I don't know at such conferences, in order to make them feel a bit more welcome. Cheers! u.
