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[John Nesky]

I went to GDC last year, and there was lots of awesome stuff.

But honestly, I felt uncomfortable a lot of the time. With the huge crowds of people rushing around, persuading each other to trade business cards, and all eventually meandering off to packed bars with loud music, GDC is an extraverted game developer's paradise. The thing is that I'm extremely introverted.

I'm going again this time, but I'm wondering if there are others who would be interested in hanging out in more introvert-friendly contexts, where we could show each other our works-in-progress, share ideas, compare schedules, and maybe make some actual friends. (not contacts!)

Fun fact: Last year I played and beat the Noitu Love 2 demo at the IGF booth, and then Konjak informed that I was the only one at the convention who had actually beaten it. It made me sad to know that everyone was too busy networking to take the time to enjoy the games that were on display. I also beat all of Cactus's Shotgun Ninja while he stood beside me, and was happy to give him the opportunity to actually watch someone playing his game. I think there should be more of this sort of thing at GDC.

EDIT: This thread is for introvert-friendly meetups, hopefully. Just in case that wasn't clear.

[progrium]

Sounds like you're hanging out with the wrong crowd. Come hang out with us instead of the networkers.

[mrfredman]

This will be my first GDC, so I don't have any prior experience and I'm definitely more than a little anxious about all the mingling and social interaction that goes on. I'm someone who spends way more time vapidly staring at screens than interacting with human beings, so I can completely relate.

I'd love to join the introverted/socially anxious TIGers club and hang out. I hope we'll be able to establish some sort of comfortable lower-stress setting were we can relax and regroup between assaults of rabidly networking convention-goers.

I do want to push myself to get out of my comfort zone and do a little bit of business card exchanging, but really my goal is to have fun and meet as many TIGers and IGF entrants as I possibly can.

[Impossible]

Alcohol, #1 cure for introversion.

[Fifth]

...And what if you don't drink?

[John Nesky]

Yeah, I have no interest in alcohol-induced conversations, sorry.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Omega 3's, zinc, inositol, and tyrosine also help, if you don't want alcohol. There are a lot of causes of this, it could be just a simple phobia of talking to strangers (which is about as common as the fear of heights), it could be a genuine disinterest / passive hostility towards other people due either to secretly looking down on them or secretly thinking they look down on you (or both), it could just be that you don't have practice in verbal communication and don't have many of the social habits that they take for granted, and so on. But regardless of what it is, the substances I recommend will help a little, but the root cause should really be identified/addressed if it's causing you substantial quality of life issues.

[John Nesky]

Introversion is not a disability. 

EDIT: I'm sorry if I implied that I wanted to learn how to be an extravert.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Yes, that's why I said *if* it's causing you substantial quality of life issues. If you're fine with it and it doesn't reduce the quality of your life there's no need to do anything about it. But you opened this thread asking for advice, no? I was just giving what I recommended, since I had the same issues for a long time.

[John Nesky]

I'm not looking for advice. I'm looking for social opportunities that I would be comfortable with. Introversion != shyness.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Yes, but what you described in the first post appeared more like shyness than introversion, or at least could be interpreted as both, particularly feeling uncomfortable with eye contact and not being able to carry out a conversation ad hoc. Also someone else mentioned social anxiety, so the advice wasn't particularly directed towards you, but towards everyone who posted with similar problems in the thread.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

As an aside, the way I got around my eye contact problem is just focusing my eyes on someone's *mouth* -- it's surprisingly effective, and most people don't notice the difference.

[John Nesky]

I have edited my first post to remove the joke about eye contact. I'm actually totally fine with eye contact.

Seriously, though, where the introverts gonna be at? I want some quality chilling time.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Ah, sorry, didn't realize it was a joke. I myself used to have very big problems with it, to the extent of not even being able to look at teachers in school when they talked to me.

[Problem Machine]

I suspect TIGer gatherings will naturally stratify by energy levels

[hamburger]

I'm a good introvert myself, and always up for a gathering. Keep me in the loop if anything does happen, okay? I can be reached by voice or text at 646-438-3620.

[John Nesky]

Will do! Thanks!

[Cthulhu32]

I'm a pretty big introvert (wife is the extrovert of the family), but I went to the Tigjam in Arizona last year, and I find if you can find people who you feel comfortable with, that helps a lot. Try not to hang around the producer "zomg you made what?? game. Let me give you my card" and try to find people who are more interested in the technical aspects of games. I mostly hung out with BMcC, Alec, Tommunism, and GoldBuick at Tigjam, and they seemed like a pretty cool crowd. Although we all kept very busy, when someone wanted to bounce something off someone else or rock out some street fighter, it was good to have some people to hang out with.

Also remember, even though someone's an introvert, that doesn't mean they want you to interrupt their conversation to show them a demo, or they might be too busy to really get into the nitty gritty of how things work. Or if you don't click with someone, don't force it. I try to be a very friendly guy, but I definitely am quiet in big crowds. So if I find people I click with, I tend to group with those people. If there's nobody to click with, I try to find other groups of people (that happened a lot at the last Defcon I went to)  You're probably not going to hurt anyone's feelings "I'll see you later" if they are not your kind of people.