So, IndyFurCon is this weekend. I ended up going Saturday, getting a one-day pass. Overall, I simply ended up reminded of every reason that being social in the fandom is impossible unless you're already reasonably popular.
I picked up a friend last night and took him with me to the convention; we arrived around 12:30. That was just in time for the fursuit parade, of which I took a couple dozen photos. From there, it was on to the Artists' Alley and Dealers' Den, where I commissioned a couple of things. And then... pretty much nothing. I bumped into a couple people along the way and we chatted briefly, but the time between the parade and dinner was generally so uneventful that I could probably be convinced those four hours didn't actually exist.
Dinner was the one highlight of the day. We had a total of seventeen furs at a local burger place; four of them actually finished the one-pound burger that is the establishment's signature menu item. Conversations were had; contact information was exchanged. Eventually, though, the food was done and everyone made their way back to the hotel.
That's pretty much where the night fell apart. Everyone scattered quickly after we returned. This also included the friend that came with me; he left with a strong implication of doing adult things with someone else at the con. Of the half dozen or so people I'd exchanged information with during dinner, just one bothered sending me a text afterwards and he was clearly too drunk to be of any interest. I briefly got involved in a card game, but that wound down maybe half an hour after I joined in. By then, the dance was in full swing and anyone who was going to attend a room party had already disappeared for the night. I tried unsuccessfully to get other people to join in a game, but to no avail.
While wandering con space, someone bumped into me that I'd rather not have seen. The conversation was rather terse; I told him very directly that I was not going to forgive him for things he'd done to me in the past because he'd shown no intention of apologizing. He kept talking; I offered to take him back to my place out of little more than desperation; when he declined I stopped paying much attention to anything he said. During all this, the friend who I'd given a ride to told me that he wasn't going to be coming home with me after all... this at 11 PM, at which point it was already far too late for me to even attempt finding a room there.
Once he left, I was pulled into a conversation with two other friends who'd been too busy to even give me the time of day prior to that; ultimately I got invited back to their room. Things happened but I get the impression that it was out of pity more than genuine interest, especially as I was shooed out of the room rather abruptly when it became feasible for me to be asked to leave. It was late, sure, but it still came across as one of those people would've rather liked to see me leave an hour earlier than I did.
So, as a result of all this? Everyone else I even slightly care about at the convention is curled up with someone else at the hotel tonight, if not doing considerably more than just snuggling, while I had a half hour drive home. I get to curl up, alone, with nothing more than shattered hopes and empty promises for company. While it was certainly nice to meet a couple of people in the afternoon, it's not worth spending several hours in the evening getting increasingly despondent from being collectively ignored by everyone I'd had even the slightest hope of spending some time with.
I seriously doubt I'm going to be trying to attend a convention again in the future, of any size. If someone explicitly invites me to share a room with them and buys my badge, I might consider it, but even then I'd have to think about it before subjecting myself to little more than an expensive form of social rejection. In the meantime, I'm going to take what amounts to little more than an extended nap in the vain hope of finding someone interested in getting breakfast early tomorrow morning.
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