I have decided the reason I don’t like meeting new people is because I don’t have a very good filter.  I’m always worried I’ll speak without thinking. I tend to be an idiot more often than not, like when I talk about not wanting kids in front of someone struggling with infertility, or when I say “I wish I was dead” in front of people who have recently been faced with loved ones dying.  In other words…no filter.

See, believe it or not, Archives of Our Lives is my filter.  I censor each and every post I write, because I am terrified of offending people like I have on more than one occasion.  I write and rewrite, and for particularly controversial posts, I’ll even have Poor Kyle and my sister proofread for me.  {It’s quite the production to bring new posts to you five days a week.  I hope you’re grateful.}

Anyway, I usually take my time with my posts in an effort to keep people as un-offended as possible.  But (and there’s always a “but”), in real, one-on-one conversations with actual human beings, I can’t exactly hit DELETE when I say something stupid.  {And I say stupid things a lot.}

Needless to say, I was kind of a little terrified to attend the United Blog Order get-together that Busy Bee Lauren and I instigated.  In my uneasy state, I updated my frightened status on Facebook™:

Poor Kyle talked me out of jumping ship, though.  He said if I didn’t go, I’d look like an idiot and then all his hard work on my website would be for naught, and I hate when things turn out to be for naught, because it’s wasteful.  So I went.  I picked up RatalieNose, and she even coached me with some breathing techniques to calm me down on the US60 (the freeway made me nervous because it was drawing me nearer to the restaurant at 65 mph).  Breathe out fear, breathe in courage.  I think that’s how it goes.

Anyway, we did it!  We survived the meet-‘n-greet!  We met and we gret (oh, how I wanted that to rhyme!).  Good times were had—four hours of good times.  I walked away feeling like I had made a lot of new friends, and that doesn’t happen to me often {I’m sort of anti-social}.

There was a group of “earlies,” the four of us who got there 30 minutes prior to the actual meeting time:

L-R: Crissie, Geneva, and RatalieNose (+me, behind the camera).

After that, people started arriving in droves and I didn’t get single pictures of any one person, so I’ll post the pictures and write a list of everyone in attendance who left her name/URL.  Here goes, in no particular order:

-Busy Bee Lauren
-Lauren C.
-Chelsie A.
-Chelsea S.
-Jami
-Hillarie (no blog)
-Niki
-Maren M. (no blog)
-Malia
-Crissie
-Shawnda
-Geneva
-RatalieNose
-Shesten (who came prepared with amazing bookmarks for her website—everyone go check it out!)
-and Me, but we already know that.

Just picture me sitting at this table, between the two blue-shirt-girls.

Along with meeting and greeting each other, we also had a bunch of silly draws for door prizes.  We gave away things like silly string and bendy straws, all of which were purchased at the nearby Dollar Tree™, but it’s the thought that counts, right?  Right?  To make myself feel a little less cheap, we also had a grand prize draw of a $25 gift card to Target™, which Niki won.  I sort of wanted to win it myself, but that might have been a little tacky…

I think these lovely girls were sisters…

Some of the girls I got to know better than others, but I’ve visited everyone’s blog since that day, and they all look like wonderful, amazing people.  I had a really fun time despite myself.  Poor Kyle knew that I would.

Chelsea from Table 1 got her face in this picture, and I didn’t even notice until now.  Funny, Chelsea!

Anyone up for round two?

{Just kidding.  I might need therapy to work up the courage to do that again.  It really was scary at first.}

Share this post: on Twitter on Facebook on Google+