Playing Nice (Adventures in Extroversion)

Make your own pizza!

I drafted the headline for this minutes after I RSVPed to the Ohio Bloggers Association Cleveland January Meetup at Whole Foods. I have never felt especially comfortable in groups, especially when I'm new and know that everyone else already knows each other. (Epiphany! Maybe that's why I didn't fit in very well in a smallish southern town!) I work under the paranoid and self-conscious assumption that everyone is happy with the friends they already have and don't want any more, thank you.

Which, of course, is not at all how things were at the OBA. I haven't really met any bloggers in real life, so I didn't know what to expect, but they were all friendly, warm, genuine people. I'm relatively confident the only person I accidentally creeped out by my awkarwd attempt at conversation was the Whole Foods beer guy. Sorry, beer guy.

I meant to post this yesterday (but the downtown gridlock meant a 2-hour commute the 3 miles home and I just didn't get to it) and I don't want to wait any longer to talk about it because it will become irrelevant, but I also don't have a ton of time to get into details. Suffice it to say:

Cleveland's bloggers in person: awesome.

Cleveland's bloggers online: also awesome.

Whole Foods: My first time in one of these stores. Totally awesome.

Here are some posts to people who said it better than I did. Thank you all for the warm welcome!

Poise in Parma

Eat*Drink*Cleveland

Adventures of a trapped 300 pound man

WhyCLE

*If I missed your post, my deepest apologies! Feel free to post your link in the comments or Tweet at me angrily.