Maybe Not For Me

I spent most of the weekend in a funk because it sounded as if EVERYONE and their grandmother was attending BlogHer! I wanted to go to New York City and be part of all the crazy fun! It seems like week after week after week all I read about is everyone's pre-BlogHer posts and their I’m-so-cool-attending-BlogHer posts and seeing all of their phenomenally fun looking pictures! Meh!!! Why does everyone else get to have all the good times?!?

Then as I was struggling to fall asleep on Sunday night, I started thinking. Did I really want to go to BlogHer? I mean, did I REALLY want to go? As social and totally awesome cool as I may pretend to be, I’m really just a closet geek who can't talk to people I don't know. The idea of actually “networking” and chatting up people I’ve never met terrifies me! It makes me feel as if my stomach is dropping to my toes and going to bounce straight back up and out my nose. I probably would have ended up spending the entire time hiding in some totally lame hotel bathroom. And although I’m sure, you can meet some really cool people in bathrooms, the real question is -- do I really want to pay that much to go to a conference where I will then spend the entire time cowering in a public bathroom stall?

Savvy, cool people do not hide in public bathroom stalls, so then people would just think I was a weirdo with a freaky, unknown fetish.

But wait! There are all of those divine parties with tons of unflappable and dandy folks... I think that is a huge part of why some people go to BlogHer. And I can only imagine how sweet the parties are... if you get invited to them. (Ahem! Let me repeat that: IF YOU GET INVITED.) I don't know if you know this about me yet, but I am actually a nobody in the blogosphere. A very big, unknown nobody. If I had gone to BlogHer, I’m smart enough to recognize that I would not be invited to any parties. I can stay home and not get invited places! There is no reason for me to take the unenviable-quality I embrace to a national level.

If you had asked me a week ago I would have said "Yes! I am 100% certain! I want to save my pennies and go to BlogHer 2011 in San Diego!" But now? Maybe, not so much so…

It also occurred to me that I might not have wanted to go to actually go to BlogHer in the first place. Perhaps I just wanted to go to New York. I’ve never been to NYC and its high priority on my list of places to travel to ASAP. However, if that's what I want to do, I can do that, right? I don't need the stress and pressure of BlogHer to make me go. I can just do it on my own!

The only bad thing about not attending BlogHer is that I'll miss out on meeting some really awesome people. Or will I? Yes. I will. But there's no reason I can't still try to meet some of them! If I don't need BlogHer to get me to New York then I don't need it to bring me together with friends

As an important disclaimer, NONE of this is meant as a negative thing towards BlogHer or the people who attended it. It’s just that as I thought more about me and my personality… I came to realize it may not be the place for me. I'm too shy, too self-conscious, and excessively too unknown to get as much out of it as other people do. And you know what?

I think I may be okay with that.