ARCHAEOLOGY CONFERENCE

I never post here anymore.  But maybe I will.  I'm going to go back to documenting some of my interactions, and rath'er than analyzing my psychology (which I think I  understand pretty well--if not perfectly)--focus on exploring the connections/disconnections in my mind.

The goal is to feel uninhibited, powerful and free.  This feeling is rare--but I would like it to be commonplace--even permanent.

Anyway, I'm at the SAA conference--2nd day here.  Presented a really good paper, and professional interaction/mingling is great--I have no problem there.  But the natural mingling--the easy chatting, etc. etc.  is not there--again, I need the invitation and then I'm ok.

I approached a lot of girls--most of these were kind of situational--off handed remarks.

Best one was a Canadian professor.  She was by the water cooler--I said something like 'You've absolutely got the right idea.' or something.  FULLY engaged....so we talked for about 5-10 minutes.

Second decent one was after asking a girl sitting next to me whether or not she was using this program--she wasn't.  I followed up with a comment on her personal organizer---something fairly strong like 'You must be the most organized person in this whole conference'.  Then we went on from there...

None of these were particularly flirtatious--although I tried to be engaging.

Other approaches were more in the off-hand remark category--

'See anything interesting'?
'Any good talks?'
'Wow--that's the first time I've seen anyone reading a book that's not a program'

I probably talked to about 20 women, and not really remembering any of them all that well.  There were also about 2000 who I wanted to talk to but didn't.

Basically--it's not what I say--it's how I'm feeling when I say it.  That's why I'm resistant to the 'routine' types of things--I'm trying to find a way to feel complete--powerful--and uninhibited.