It seems people are still not "getting" The Xym.
*sigh*
I put a link up to 8 Reasons Why Authors Are Assholes citing points 2 & 4, but seeing as most people can't be bothered to follow links these days, I've emboldend the important bits below.
Take note, and I'll refer back to this blog whenever people moan about me disappearing/ not chatting up Pretties/ being "standoffish" and "unapproachable".
2. THE AUTHOR IS AN INTROVERT OR SHY.
This is me! I have Chronic Resting Bitchface. I can't introduce myself to people. I never want to bother someone or make them uncomfortable. So if you are shy and kind of hover around me, and I don't recognize you, I might avoid eye contact and check my phone. I am not one of those people who will wave at you and urge you to pick up my book or bookmarks. I will stare at the table and wait until you walk up to it and say something specifically to me because I would never want to pressure you to, say, be within twenty feet of me against your will. I am not a hard seller. This is one of my personal flaws that I am trying to fix.
But!
Once you establish that I know you via social media, that you've read my books, or that you are even vaguely interested in my books or a shared fandom, we can be buddies forever*. It's just rare that I will instigate a conversation with a stranger. Because I am terrified of strangers.
*XymNote: If I only know you through Social Media, or a vague nodding acquaintance, you still fall into the scary stranger category, hence I'm unlikely to instigate non-Facebook converse.
4. THE AUTHOR IS WITH THEIR FRIENDS.
This one always worries me, because I've been the nobody snubbed by a clique, and I never want to be the snubber. I've been the shy kid, the bullied kid, the friendless kid. I've been that person at a con who knows absolutely no one and can't seem to squeeze into a circle of conversation. And yet I know that, at some point, I'll be hanging with some of my best friends to the exclusion of others and I might not even know it. These days, my very best friends are writers I only get to see a couple of times a year, and most of our relationship happens online, and when I actually get to see them, I am giddy with joy and focused on them. And if someone is hovering outside that circle, I might not notice it, and I hate that.
