some thoughts on "community"

[quietann]

Recently someone made a backhanded sort of criticism of "my community" in their LJ. It really got my hackles up. At first I was surprised, but then of course the comment was posted right after my wedding, when the best of the community was present in full force. (As in, within 10 minutes moving an entire wedding ceremony from outdoors into a barn, in the pouring rain, with good graciousness and outstanding organization...)

I guess sometimes I'm very sensitive to social criticism of the _entire group_, as if we are all some sort of mutant freaks... or rather, the same sort of mutant freak (e.g. socially inept). Most of us grew up getting ostracized and seem to go out of our way to avoid doing so to others. And this person's comment came across as "I'm better than all of you." -- which begs the question, why associate with us then?

This doesn't mean that "if I were Queen" I wouldn't kick a couple of people out. But only a couple, and not likely exactly the couple any other individual within the group would kick out if they could. It doesn't mean I don't gossip, or that there aren't any people whose actions make me twitch. But the group, as a whole, is fine the way it is.

I will tell you two outsiders' views -- my dad's and his partner's, after meeting many of the group members before and during the wedding. They were impressed with the sheer concentration of smart and interesting people this group has. And my dad's partner was heartened to see that overweight women were welcome, and just as likely to be partnered as skinny women. As she put it, "this is not a place where people are valued based on superficial characteristics."

My feelings on overweight women in the community? That's another issue, for my next post, though

Comments

[quietann.livejournal.com]

"Sometimes I want to talk about the war in Afghanistan. Sometimes I want to talk about running. Sometimes I want to talk about my family. And sometimes I even want to talk about computers, but not as often as it comes up in conversation."

You know, this strikes me as odd. I've found that at OPN, some of the best non-typical conversations occur. Recently, we've talked about the Catholic church, families (especially nuttiness within families), weddings, movies (not just "Star Wars" and "Spiderman"), bicycling, the many many books people read and the hobbies they have...

God knows that if a similar event was held amongst my classmates at HSPH, the range of conversation would be much, much narrower. They're nice, smart people, but for the most part bland as white bread.

For me, the geekery conversations are background noise. Of course, I'm in no way, shape, or form a computer geek, so I don't get drawn into these conversations; no one's inclined to try to impress _me_ with their latest geek toy or their latest hack. Avoiding the computer room at OPN cuts way, way down on the techno-geekery.

I can see why having the event at your place is annoying, but you _knew_ that it was going to be occuring there before you moved in. And I do think the solution of a "rotating" OPN site is a good one