[OOC] How to invite me out productively and other communications things

[xurnami]

This is an attempt to explain how get my attention to get me out of my apartment and visit with you. I am not great at talking about myself so if you have questions, please leave comments.

I am very much a loner but when I do get out of the house I am interested in sharing good food and then following that up with some sort of intellectually stimulating exercise. A good example of something I enjoy doing is going from a meal with lots of great discussion to sitting around a table and playing a designer board game. I'd prefer not too many people involved. About the number of people for your average board game (two to seven) is just about perfect. If you want me to bring a board game, I have plenty and can bring one I'm interested in. I have some that still haven't even been played yet. If you are interested in Magic: the Gathering, I have a variety of different decks I can bring if you give me an idea of your skill level.

I also have tons of side projects that I work on when I have a chance, so inviting me to be "alone together" in a public space is also a great way to get together with me. I can head to any number of different coffee shops, take a table, and enjoy some refreshing or stimulating beverages, while we each work on something interesting to us. Small amounts of accountability that I am working on something and not just fiddling with some new game is also appreciated and can be reciprocated if desired.

I am very bad at inviting myself. I do not wish to be a bother to people and so if you'd like to see me around, sending very explicit invitations to do one of the above things is extremely helpful to doing that.

I love learning new things about just about any topic too. If you are learning or doing absolutely anything interesting, I most likely want to hear about it. I'll have lots of questions and I just want to absorb new information from whatever you are up to. Just please, make sure that you are giving me a chance to follow along. I sometimes feel like I am so far behind on certain things and everyone else is talking about these things at a level that I'm not at and that I would interrupt the flow to bring it back to my level. I have spent a ten thousand hour chunk of my time focused on one particular field (computer programming) and while that has led me to some success, most of the people in the field are people I don't want to really interact with. If you are interested in this particular topic, I am more than interested in talking your ear off about it. Always feel free to tell me to stop too.

This also applies to online contact. If there a contact medium that you prefer for chatting, please tell me. I am more than willing to set things up to chat over it. I have some very idiosyncratic mechanisms for setting up chat so sometimes I just have forgotten to set it up recently if you have me on some medium and never see me around. I am always open to having people contact me at any time. My away message should be set correctly most of the time if I am not available. If I am set available, I am completely open to be contacted.

Comments

[mallgoyle]

Thank you for putting this out there, I feel the same way a lot about not wanting to be a bother/halting conversational flow. I'll do my level best to keep this in mind, and we should totally look into doing a creative date thing at some point in the near future.

[frameacloud]

Noted, Darash. Thank you for putting this into words for us to know.

[nickylion]

Thank you for putting this out there, and for letting us know.

Out of curiosity, how late does your day typically go? One of the first things I thought when I saw this is "hmm, I wonder if there's some sort of useable synergy out there with regards to Magic playing."

I mean, I know you are wanting to get better and playtest again other people. I'm finding myself wondering if you would be up to the occasional playtesting session on Monday nights (it's the slowest night at the store, and most likely to be one where I have large amounts of free time to play against you). I don't have much in the way of Modern yet, but I can proxy stuff easily enough and learn the various decks in the meta fairly quickly. Just a thought?

[xurnami]

I'll make a note in a access only journal about my specific hours. Most evenings after 5pm I'm free though.

The one issue with Monday specifically is I already have an appointment weekly on Mondays. I could possibly move that around.

I'm most looking at playtesting standard as that is most of the tournaments I am planning to go to. I am now keeping a habit of maintaining 2-4 of the top decks in standard at any time so I can supply the decks there without problem.

[brushwolf]

Okay, so it's cool if we're in the same place and I just draw stuff, right? Because I'm pretty good at doing that and it is socially comforting, not that we're physically in the same location these days.

[xurnami]

Yeah, if we ever end up in the same place again. I'm all for that. :)