Confession time · 2:56am Sep 2nd, 2016
Sometimes I feel like I'm not making conversation on FIMFiction so much as I'm randomly stumbling around and erratically stabbing people with a linguistic rapier. I'm feeling it especially acutely right now because there are a couple of conversations I'm trying to join, or to rejoin, and I keep locking up when I try.
This is especially frustrating because one of those conversations is the dozens of people commenting on my new story, BBBCF. Reaction has been broadly positive, and you'd think that saying "Thank you!" to "This was good!" (or "I'm flattered you want more!" to "Sequel!") would be the easiest thing in the world, but no, I'm staring at the wall of comments like
"Hello. My name is xXx_PonyFan69_xXx. You wrote a good story. Prepare to be upvoted."
A few of you who attended Bronycon might recall the evening of the ginormous author dinner at Tír na nÓg, and that might seem like a strange segue but bear with me for a moment. I did my best to help keep the crowd together as a hundred authors migrated toward the restaurant (I was the tall dude with the flashlight), and then once everyone crammed inside I ended up as one of twelve people jammed in around a tiny little shelf-table around a pillar that maybe could have fit eight on a good day; and with somewhat reduced grace I bailed for a seat at the bar in order to alleviate the pillar overcrowding; and then after our food had arrived at the bar a table opened up, and there was an argument over tip percentages as we tried to settle our tab so we could move, and with the grace of Sombra in sunshine I grabbed the bill, credit-carded the whole thing, and frog-marched my poor barmates over to the table.
At which point I very nearly came within spitting distance of enjoying my meal.
I don't do crowds. 
I can. This problem does not completely cripple me; with preparation and energy expenditure I can route around it, and there are some specific exemptions in which I can feel in my element (such as convention dances where I can focus on physical motion). But there is nothing about crowds which I find fun. At the point at which human critical mass causes normal conversation to require raised voices, I am already uncomfortable. When I don't have elbow room in multiple directions, I am fighting off self-preservation instincts screaming at me to bolt out to where the pack thins. And when I am the center of attention in a crowd, everything magnifies.
On the Internet, there's really no raised-voice or elbow-room issues, because it's all text on a screen. But in the right circumstances it's very easy to be the center of attention in a crowd. And when that happens, the same instincts kick in. It doesn't even matter if the crowd is friendly (ironically, that might even make it worse — because with hostile crowds I very rarely feel any obligation to linger, but with friendly crowds I want to participate). So even though a simple "Thank you" tagging 20 people takes less time to write than a more in-depth response to a single comment on an older story, it requires an order of magnitude more emotional energy, and I block on it.
This is how bad it gets: I'm spending an hour and a half writing this post instead of ten minutes responding to BBBCF comments. It makes sense inside my head, I promise! Even though this is an in-depth post, the fact that I can write it all at once before dealing with the consequences of feedback — my filibustering, as it were — turns it into a single interaction occupying a single tiny mental chunk, whereas a one-line comment with 20 tags is 20 interactions and occupies 20 mental chunks. I feel like I'd be immediately accountable to 20 people for speaking up, and that gives me all sorts of room to second-guess myself. I freak out over whether those 20 people deserve something more than a simple thank-you (answer: in almost all cases just speaking up is more than sufficient, but try convincing my brain of that) and over whether I'm missing someone who I should have included (answer: this is a stupid thing to freak out over, but try convincing my brain of that) and over whether I'm mis-prioritizing my time by responding to this group before that group (answer: almost certainly, but just as certainly, the amount of shits that other people actually give about this is an order of magnitude smaller than my brain is picturing). With this post, I've got a clean slate. I know that it's going to result in people speaking up, which can result in further dangling conversational threads, but I can fool my brain into treating that as Future Horizon's problem.
This filibuster effect is also why, with the one comment I did write, I grabbed a few comments I could really sink my teeth into and went off at length. It's like retreating to a quiet corner at a party and tuning the room out by nerding out over something.
So, basically: My apologies if you said something on my story and I haven't replied. It's not you, it's me.
(I should specify, both for my own sanity and to properly set expectations: I'm giving myself reply amnesty on this post. I will definitely be reading what you have to say, and the last thing I want is to inhibit anyone from speaking up out of some fear of triggering me. But you should comment knowing that I am not promising a response on anything. If you have something for which you specifically desire a response, feel free to shoot me a PM.)
Well, if you have a buncha people around, they might try to track you to your lair and steal your horde, and then you might hafta breath fire on 'em. Not liking crowds is totally normal...
--Sweetie Belle
It's funny, because I find the attention of physical crowds rather intoxicating unlike you, but I get the same way with comments on my stories.
I reply to a few, fall asleep, wake up... and my brain just locks up at the thought of replying to new comments.
It's like... I don't know what it's like for me. I don't want to call it lazy, but I certainly lose motivation when I see a wall of comments on one of my stories.
In short, I feel you on the comment thing.
Yeah, I'm petrified in front of crowds too. It's kind-of a reverse ego thing. When I went to Midwest Brony Fest, I had this misguided fear of "What if I'm recognized." Then I got there, asked around, and realized that wasn't going to be a problem. (Two people. Sigh.)
I think the psychological profile of the Typical Brony runs very heavily to Turtle and very little into Social Bunny, so when you get a bunch of us together, we're *really* well-behaved, and the Turtle with the shiniest shell (or carapace for changelings) tends to be followed by the rest of the Turtles.
I like "I loved your story" comments. They're like crack. I *love* "I liked your story because X, Y, Z" comments because they're building blocks for future skyscrapers. Generally, it's good form to reply back to both ("Thank you" for the first and "Thanks, I did it that way because..." on the second) The *hard* ones are the requests for sequels.
Some stories won't ever sequel (Elements of Maternity) Some stories *might* sequel (Tantabus, Do Your Worst) Some stories really should sequel (The One Who Got Away) and some stories will have sequel chapters written until I grow old(er) and die (Monster in the Twilight). The really hard part of responding to comments is how to gently let down the "This won't happen" and encourage the "This is happening, but not until next year because I've got a giant stack ahead of it" commenters. I'll let you know when I have that figured out.
I know this feel, but as a seasoned DM, I'm pretty good at holding multiple conversations at once. Unless the pain or meds get in the way and I just pass out while trying to herd the cats my thoughts have morphed into.
What gets me is the single comment on a story that hasn't seen any sort of attention in months and I place it in its own browser tab and avoid looking at it for as long as I can. I fear what it'll be and who I've somehow upset, let down, or both. THOSE comments I could sooner write a long blog post about why I don't want to look at them, than actually respond to them.
4186552
That's what booby traps and kobolds are for!
On the other hand, you can, you know, just ignore all of them.
Sure, if you want people to comment more then thanking them for their comments is nice. But if it's too exhausting or difficult... it's totally up to you whether or not you do it. Sometimes you need to cut your losses and deal with what you can handle.
Comments are like...
Erasmus reading newspaper scraps in the street. I'll read them fervently
But no one said they were worth it most of the time
Yeah, I feel you on all of these counts. I can manage in a crowd alright, but only if I can carve out a nice open space to retreat to every few hours or so. Sharing a room during a con would not be an option for me, I NEED space.
I can manage fairly well because crowds and attention fuels adrenaline and on a good day I can work both like any normal person, but most of the time it results in me staring ahead like a fish in headlights. When it gets to the point where I need to raise my voice in a group of people, that likely means I'm barely going to say anything for the rest of the conversation, especially with people I don't know well.
I'm used to wallflowering, so although I enjoy attention, I still don't quite know what to do with it when I get it
With comments, I wait about a week before responding to anything. Partly because I want to respond to many comments in one chunk, but mostly because I need that week to brace and prep to respond. If I'm lucky there's questions or observations I can interact and respond to, but general praise is kind of paralyzing,
On the one hand, I'm glad it's not just me who stares at comments wondering what, if anything, I should say.
On the other hand, it is rather discouraging to hear that the feeling doesn't go away with experience.
Still, I don't feel quite so, um, out of place, so that's something.
I think you and I have the same brain, for the most part.
Even with preparation, crowds are unbearable to me. I love nothing better than to get away from people so I can regain energy. Just being around others is like being the Crystal Heart tossed into a sea of changelings for me.
Online it is a good deal easier, of course. A hell of a lot easier, really, and my preferred method of interacting with other people, at a physical distance but with intellectual closeness. Let us keep our meatspace untainted and meld our minds together!
this isn't the confession I wanted to hear!
i.ytimg.com/vi/-DYyjS9Q_io/maxresdefault.jpg
Tell me that my authors are all lying to me and not replying to me because they don't like my comments and they don't want to be my authors anymore!
I do the same things with comments. In fact, on every story of mine for the past two years or so, you can see my First-24-Hour resolution to reply to everyone... and then you can see it go out the window unless some kind of argument starts up.
And when it comes to physical crowds, I almost posted this after BronyCon:
So we are in the same boat. A hopefully a quiet boat.
I understand and strongly empathize with this reaction, and will do my best to keep it in mind in any relevant fora. Having heard this, I'd like to express my admiration that you not only stepped up to play that role in the dinner (which I didn't witness), but also appeared on at least one panel (which I did).
Of course, the really frustrating thing is that this ties into an unrelated but equally pernicious problem that shuts me down just as hard: an obsessive perfectionism that reduces more or less to a fear of getting things wrong, which scales geometrically with the importance of the topic.
There was a second conversation I was avoiding — the Hugo/Truesdale thing over in Bad Horse's blog — and that was totally a perfectionism issue rather than a crowd issue. But while I was unloading my brain I did manage to at least get a reply dumped over there as well.
I might write about the perfectionism thing later. I think I'm about wiped out for words tonight.
I get this, I do, and I hope that you have a good quiet place to just let it wash away. The stress, the worry, and the nuance of it all. I know that its a rare thing to comment back, and thankful you did for my own comments. But rest, recover, and may your muse keep in inspiring you where its comfortable.
Ever notice how many blogs I post... or don't post? I'm not actually that social by nature. I don't even really get out much, and tend to spend all my free time at home by a computer. I'm better than I used to be when I was growing up, but if a party was going on, I'm the one well away from everyone else, looking at the bookshelves.
So, yes, I can totally understand. That and I'm the type to write a million page response to a paragraph someone else wrote, which doesn't help. (I guess it's that filibuster effect, actually.)
Unfortunately, my own totally freezing up when going to write something tends to be when I'm writing the next chapter of something, though. That's one reason I don't post fanfics often...
--arcum42
You're not aloneI know how you feel. My knee-jerk reaction when I see a crowd is usually to turn around. It doesn't help that I'm quiet, both in the sense of not talking much and not talking particularly loudly (unless teenage-me is right and everyone else is half deaf). I usually try to sate that pesky urge to physically interact with people in one-on-one settings. Failing that… there's always the internet… sometimes.Move along, Future Horizon, nothing requiring a response here
This happens with me, constantly. It's one of the reasons I don't write, along udderly crippling perfectionism which makes me want to just make it mediocre. I just can't start a conversation online and not feel like I'm butting in somehow and once I do I don't know where to stop. For example one the of the authors on here, whose work I love, put in a little thing that would theoritically, according to the stories laws of physics, stage off the universe's heat death. And I told them because I thought it was coincidence. It wasn't and we started talking a bit more and then... Nothing. So I'm left with the feeling of 'was I being a creepily over enthusiastic fan, or am I just not that bad at talking?' And I'm pretty shit at getting my ideas across so I probably made myself out to be like a child trying explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity to quantum physicist.
Hey man, I totally understand what you're getting at.
I'm not much of a social creature either.
If a blog post is the way for you to thank, or explain why, then I feel that's totally fine.
~Skeeter The Lurker
I get it.
Which is why I keep my interaction in anything to near nonexistence.
Don't worry about it bud. If there's one thing we Bronies are good at, it's understanding folks with anxiety and similar quirks. :)
Yeah, I get this.
In fact I'm committing to not deleting anything I type here just to make sure this gets posted. I literally had to fight the urge to delete that line. Or just closing the tab.
I still feel bad for not replying to any of the comments left on my entry for the Pony Island contest you ran, especially because they all had good feedback. Getting that entry out at all felt like pulling teeth. I really need to try a Writeoff at some point just so I'm committed to having to actually publish pony fic instead of mulling it over for way too long.
...I didn't know, horizon. :(
But, I'm glad I do now.
1. Don't feel guilty. You don't owe anyone a reply.
2. Don't overthink it. No one cares as much about your replies as you do.
Easier said than done, I know. Good luck.
This makes me feel slightly better about being so bad about replying to story comments. (Though I suppose that's less from social anxiety than feeling the need to either contribute something important to the discussion or not contribute at all.)
Yeah, I'm there with you. Obligatory joke answer about Changelings.
If you made this clear to everyone in advance, is this a strategy you could use for the stories themselves?
I can handle crowds well enough. I'm fascinated by how humanity behaves as a fluid past a certain density point. But having that crowd's attention? (shudder) Yeah, there I'm with you one hundred percent.
As for the comments, goodness knows my track record there is sporadic at best. I just completely flake out on some episode review blogs, mostly because I use my routine as an excuse to procrastinate for a lot of things. Or I just don't have anything to say.
Point is, no harm, no foul. You'll get to it when you get to it, and I'm perfectly okay with that "when" actually being an "if." Though I admit, I am now feeling a little trepidation over how you're going to react to a comment that's mostly navel gazing and self-reflection on a blog where you're being open about your issues.
*Hugs the shy author*
Anxiety and avoidance look really weird from outside, and you can sit there and point out to yourself how weird it looks and it doesn't do anything to change the anxiety and that may be the most frustrating part of all.
Oh man, the pillar table. That thing is the worst, and I'm glad I didn't get stuck at it last year, even though it had a really good crowd the year before when I was there. I still hope we can make BC next year.
4186657
I have the same problem, but no smoking habit. Did you get a billion ear infections as a child, too?
4187498
Nope; my dad was in a rock band when I was born (early 80s), and when I was little my mom used to take me with her to his shows. It didn't occur to her until I had trouble hearing as a kid that being around concert speakers and amps probably wasn't the best thing for an infant/toddler.
The guilt of not replying to nice comments is way greater than it really should be. I mean logically, I wrote a story somebody loved, they wrote a comment indicating they loved it, and so we've both improved each other's day already, nothing further should really be required, right?
But the guilt is still there.
Though actually I have pretty much the opposite problem. Crowds are fine by me, and hordes of similar comments I can just say "thank you" to are simple enough. It's the one comment, all alone, with nothing in particular that inspires a response, sitting there just going "Nice story!" at me that always gets me.
I mean... I could reply. It'd take ten seconds. Might as well. It'd probably be cheering for the person who left the comment, I know I like it when authors I love respond to me. But it's effort. Somehow it's more than ten seconds' worth of effort, and there's a terrible, greedy, resentful part of me that is incredibly stupid and selfish that goes "What, they couldn't say something real? Just nice story? That's all?!" that I want to slap myself for, but it's still there, and everything feels awful and why does it matter and nobody actually cares and writing is somehow so hard, and they will never even notice, and I'll probably do the stupid thing that doesn't send the notification right and I'll have to delete it and write it again and why should I bother and the whole world sucks and it's just one comment and I have no spoons left to deal with this and why is it so hard, I am a terrible person and I hate myself and everything else, the whole world is terrible and...
Let's just mark this notification as read, because that's somehow so much easier, and I need to cut this whole terrible spiral off and move on.
Two or three comments I can just lump together and reply to at once gathers enough momentum to get me over the lazy, depressive, "nothing matters anyway" hump and then I'm good, I can reply and talk to people and it's all fine. When I have a popular story that gets absolutely flooded, I'm riding so high on the approval that it's beyond "easy" it's wonderful and amazing and I want to go personally hunt everyone down and actually shake their hand or something.
But yeah. No anxiety here, just crushing depression, woo!
It's actually been much better since having the baby. Instead of Post Partum Depression, I seem to have gotten Post Partum Undepression or something, it's pretty nice. But of course since having the baby I also just have no flipping time to respond to people half the time, so I end up just clearing out my notifications anyhow, because I'm trying to rush through checking all my various websites, and washing all the baby feeding things and picking up her mess and cooking something to eat all in the 45 minutes she'll probably stay asleep for.
4186589
I have a probably irrational pet peeve about being asked for sequels that makes me want to rant angrily at everyone who leaves a sequel related comment. (Or a "when will this be finished?" comment on my two unfinished stories, which I find even more irrationally enraging. Said rage is why I don't post more unfinished stuff, even though I have literally dozens of interesting stories started. Anyhow.) It's probably for the best in those cases that I generally don't have the mental energy to reply. Saves everyone involved a lot of drama.
4187547
That'll do it! I've probably made things a bit worse from a few shows. I didn't believe people about ear plugs being good at a show at first, though.
4186710 "...an obsessive perfectionism that reduces more or less to a fear of getting things wrong, which scales geometrically with the importance of the topic...."
One of the Murphy's Laws books I was reading had a law "There comes a time in the history of any project when it becomes necessary to shoot the engineers and begin production."
I believe this applies to FimFiction too (although 'shoot' may be replaced by the Brian Sanderson paraphrased equivalent of "Shut the author into a steel box and run cackling over to the Publish button.")
Everyone here deserves a comment. These are the ones I've got in me. Thank you all for responding.
4187019
Navel-gazing/self-reflection is good. The outpouring of personal experience here is making me feel better/less alone, and offers a real connection without demanding so much of a response. So thank you.
4187444
Hugs are also good! **hug**
4187001
Specifying reply amnesty up front would definitely be a useful tool in the toolbox, yes! It feels a little weird to think about declaring it up front, because sometimes I can keep up and sometimes I can't and it feels a little bit like predeclaring failure (or else exceeding expectations and making my warning look hollow), but if I can reasonably expect that I'll fail to engage then linking back here in the future may very well help.
4186894
Thank you for your bravery. I'm really honored that this post (and my contest!) were worth the effort.
To be honest I recognized your name immediately from the context and was delighted to see you speaking back up again, and I would never have even put two and two together that you didn't respond to comments there if you hadn't explicitly mentioned it. Intellectually, as a fellow self-beater-up-over-comment-nonresponses, I've learned what 4186941 says: nobody cares about that silence nearly as much as we ourselves do. It's trying to drum that into your conscience that's the hard part. At some point — for your own sanity, if nothing else — I think you have to let a statute of limitations kick in, and allow yourself to forgive yourself. Some old comments were dropped, we can acknowledge that, and it's okay. Good to talk to you again.
A Writeoff is a combination of easy and hard. If you're afraid of judgment you can submit it under a pseudonym so that you're effectively anonymous even after names are revealed, but even if you do it can be a very difficult feeling to sit there silently as comments roll in on your story with constructive criticism (and criticism in general). On the bright side, the unforgiving deadline is a super strong tailwind away from those self-defeating edit-panic cycles (with which I am also intimately familiar) — the Writeoffs are pretty much the only reason I manage to get anything published at all — and it's a lot easier to press the button and commit to it with the knowledge that everyone is on a time crunch and that every single entrant is throwing a first draft into the ring. You're not submitting work below your inner standards because of a personal failure, you're submitting work below your inner standards because the structure of the competition forces everyone to limit their polishing time. Ultimately, it may not end up working out, but it has definitely pushed me in helpful ways.
4186696
I actually stage-acted in high school, and I'm really glad I did, because that's almost certainly a big factor in what comfort levels I do have. While having a crowd that's explicitly listening to me is center-of-attention terrifying, I can counter that with the filibuster effect — and I've also learned to mentally block the crowd out if I'm on stage, keeping my social obligation confined more to the people I'm up there with. Also, acting gave me practice in mentally rehearsing a line and focusing on a delivery so that I can pipe up in a crowd if I have something to inject into the conversation. Ad-libbing is more stressful (and results in more after-the-fact self-judgment) but I feel like I've at least got the skill set to give it a shot.
I am a total introvert. I can act like an extrovert just fine; it just costs me energy.
Local theater groups can offer a lower-stress way to start picking that up if you're not the right age to have academic groups to get in on that with. A lot of people also swear by public-speaking groups like Toastmasters for the same reason.
4186738
Which is exactly why I feel safe acknowledging you.
4186657
For the record, the quiet outside time smoking was a highlight for me, for the reasons we both outline. Thank you.
And I also hear you (ironically…) on the poor hearing angle. I'm not sure whether it's hearing damage or some autistic-spectrum effect or what, but my ability to comprehend people goes to complete shit as the background noise increases. This is definitely not a positive factor in my crowd anxiety. I've considered specifically training myself to read lips, but my vision's somewhat below average as well and for stupid pride reasons I try to avoid corrective lenses.
4186655
Well, of course all authors are lying to you! I mean, come on, it's an open secret we're all here to get you invested in our stories so that we can harvest your delicious, delicious emotions!
What do you mean they're not?
… nobody else does that? What, seriously?
Um.
4186594 4186552
Kobolds? Oh gods. Kobolds.
I let this kobold named Pun-Pun guard my hoard once.
NEVER. AGAIN.
4187733
So much yes. I am trying, desperately trying, to train myself into giving myself permission to do that. As noted, the Writeoffs are pretty much the only reason I'm able to get new work out at all. The deadline forces the issue.
I used to work as a copy editor. Those are hard habits to untrain. It was literally my job for a decade to freak out over every tiny little comma, every bit of phrasing and vocabulary, and only stop when the deadline ticked down and I had no choice but to shove it out the door. Without external deadlines I have such a huge tendency to spiral back into the worry pits.
4187789 And those habits follow, like during church when everybody is happily singing along to the hymn projected up on the front wall and all I can think of is "That's the wrong they're"
4186570
I am a huge attention horse.
but for the other 362 days I'm not hanging out at Bronycon, I feel I'm squeezed between the vise grip of "Writing Horsewords for Fun and Profit" and "Adult Hard 2, Adult Harder."
Work, commute, and raising kids kinda sucks the energy out of you. No energy = crappy writing, and I don't want to publish crap. Ergo, online social hermit.
4187662
Whenever I get the sequel comments, I talk about how flattering it is to hear they want to read more of my stuff in a non-committal way. It seems to work well enough 99% of the time.
I do sometimes explain why I wouldn't write a direct sequel, though - for instance, my (now second) most recent story has an obvious sequel story about Flurry Heart learning about her heritage... which is precisely why it is uninteresting. If I was to write a sequel there, I'd have to subvert the obvious story, because the obvious story would be boring and we've all read it a bajillion times before anyway.
But generally the best thing to do is to be nice and enthusiastic and just not say anything committal one way or another. And for Celestia's sake, don't start an argument with them about their idea, no matter how terrible it is. They're trying to show their enthusiasm.
Of course, you can also always encourage them to write their own sequel.
Incidentally, A Poem for your Sprog has you covered:
Very much a social turtle, here; I feel your pain.
4187733 Where do I get a gun with which I can shoot my internal engineers? Please tell me...
I know commenting here is kind of the opposite of helping, but i just want to say that you shouldnt feel obligated to even read comments, and responses should really just be focused on those who say something that you want to add to. So feel free to skip responding to most, if not all, of your commentors. For example, there is really not much need to respond to this one.
Pff. Well, I don't feel nearly as bad now. I've been recently meaning to poke you and discuss writing shenanigans. Been thinking about it for, oh, three months or so.
So uh hey are you ever online in a sort of 'vegging and free for a half-hour discussion about bloody poetry I ought to have finished six bloody months ago' kind of way
I wish I knew how to get into words/tech my experience/feelings at cons nowadays.
Like, my first Pony meetup of any sort was Canterlot Gardens. I had to spend the first day basically giving myself permission to stop being one of those 'I'm here, but I'm not one of THOSE Bronies, I'm gonna be a cool normal person who likes ponies'; also, social anxiety in that I wanted to back out last minute. It took till Saturday evening before I finally let go and just enjoyed myself.
Then I went to a couple pony meets in Chicago - again, anxiety-stuff. And yet, at the S3 premiere, a few things happened :
1. I met someone who was truly, truly introverted. And there was this moment of 'Wait, no, I'm...not. Not like that'. Yea, I get anxiety in new situations, but I've learned it's more about the -new- than anything else; a fear of 'I don't know the rules here, what if I fuck up?' kinda sensation.
2. I met some people who are really social and outgoing and friendly and went 'I want to be more like them' and then the Spock in me began studying what they did and try to replicate it. Yep, even when learning to be more social/engaging I am a huge huge huge Vulcan about it, apparently. Still, it helped.
3. We didn't have enough car spots to get back to the hotel a bunch of us were in - leading to night one me having to go through train & taxi through downtown Chicago alone, and the next morning train and bus, and the night after train and whatever with one other person. Suffice to say when I went 'I am in a City I know like, almost nothing about, alone, and cool with it' - that helped.
Since then it's just been an active effort to always find ways to become more comfortable; it's like, a sort of extinction therapy - get used to the anxiousness and reduce it by forcing myself into situations I'll be anxious in. It hasn't stopped the anxiety - latest spring of it was last month before I went to a work event - but it helps.
Of course from time to time, even at cons, I get exhausted and retreat to nap/rest a bit. Though, usually, I find that is more physical from not going to bed till 3-4 AM repeatedly than emotionally taxed. Usually. Both happen, though.
Anyhow the short version is I do want to makes Babs to hang out more in a not-BC-sized setting!