Re: Coming out & finding-the-community stories?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sai Emrys" <sai@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2007 12:02 AM
Subject: Coming out & finding-the-community stories?


> Tell us about:
> * how you 'came out' as a conlanger in any context (academic, social,
> parents, ...), their reactions to it, etc
I've gotten mixed reactions. People who know me and care about me just
accept it. However, when we went to Michigan, my father-in-law's new wife
(now ex) saw me writing at a picnic table and asked what I was doing. When I
said I was making up a language, she stopped talking to me. (LOL)... Really,
over time, I've found that most people more or less expect me to be doing
something like this after they get to know me, and they either think it is
cool or just write it off as one of my quirks. I've gotten far worse
reactions from admitting that I played EverQuest.

>
> * how you found out that others do this (i.e. all of us weirdos) &
> your reactions to that.
>
I just sort of assumed that other people did it. It never crossed my mind
that it was an odd thing to do. I used Alta Vista (back in the pre-Google
era) to search for "invented languages" or "inventing languages" or
something of that nature, and found the list. And then I happily joined.

If you hunt down an old thread, you can probably get more details from that.
I've been around a long time.

> Consider this an open prompt; I just want to hear your stories about
> the social side of this craft.
>
> - Sai