Follow Your Weird
Danny O'Brien writes about the importance of what Cory pegged following your weird in this account of a science fiction convention.
Baycon is a very costume-based convention (or "cosplay" as the young, wide-eyed screaming anime fans are calling it). This means that everyone looks like a freak. Especially people like me, who don't dress up. We look like the weirdest freaks ever. Even the hotel staff look like fairly normal freaks by comparison, because they're dressed up in waiter and maid's outfits.
And some people, look like incredible, dressed-like-Lara-Croft-only-with-chains-on semi-naked babelicious freaks. Not that I stare. Or even look, or think about them, or anything ever. I only know about their existence because when these people walk into a room, all the straight boys nearby give out this universal telepathic deflatory pained sigh. It's like the sound of a wolf-whistle, only backwards, sucked in. Ooohhhhhh.
The sigh has a meaning. All my life, it says, I have been told by my superego that dressing like a Marvel superhero will not get me laid. And, here, here and now in this temporary saturnalia, surrounded by other males who are - at best - my equals in the ugly league division table: here is my perfect woman. But the world knows that this mad girl's flickering eyes craves just one thing. A man dressed as Galactus, Eater of Worlds. And not only have I left my Galactus costume at home. I never made it. Worse, I threw those biro drawings of me in the Galactus helmet away the moment I'd drawn them, ashamed to show them even to (say) Dave. And now I know: I'm not a virgin because I'm a geek. I'm a virgin because I have pursued geekdom with a less than pure, directed gaze. I have faltered, and now I'm just another guy at Baycon. And some other guy in front of me will be Galahad with the Holy Grail because he spent two weeks measuring out huge papier-mache clamps to fit on the side of his head. And I did nothing but stare at my Lara Croft pull-out poster, in the belief that she was not real and that I could not ever meet her.
(Via Boing Boing)
And like so much else at a convention devoted to fiction in its various aspects, it's all an illusion. That woman in the chainmail bikini looks like a model because she is a model, or an aspiring actress, or a stripper, or has some other pursuit that requires stunning looks and the dedication to maintain them. She doesn't read science fiction. Her main extracurricular activities include many hours of exercise to keep that drop-dead look, and shopping for clothes and cosmetic products to enhance it. She isn't at the con to meet a guy dressed as Galactus. She's at the con to show off her costume and her body. With every head that turns, with every geek's heart that breaks, she's thinking, "Yes! I'm the most attractive thing in the room. Damn, I'm good."
The aforementioned virgin geek is still a virgin because he's still hoping for Lara Croft, or because he's given up on Lara Croft and knows that no real woman will match up to her. Unbeknownst to him, only steps away is his soul-mate. She's thirty pounds overweight and considers makeup a waste of time, but still occasionally thinks of herself as Catwoman. She's read all of Heinlein's works and will heartily debate on the topic of whether Friday was a pro- or anti-feminist novel. She knows all the lines from Monty Python, but is sick of hearing guys quote them. When she's alone, she likes to sing along to her Steeleye Span records. And she came to the con hoping to meet a Fox Mulder lookalike.
Posted by Jimcat on May 30 2003 09:59