Formal Dress Pizza Party |CalNerdCon

Today's meetup post comes to us from member Berit Bontems. She attended this meetup on February 11th, 2012.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Formal Pizza Party and Becoming a Nerdfighter

I had just joined the crazy world of "Nerdfighteria". I'd heard of it before, I got the gist, but all this other stuff? Complete newbie. And now a friend of mine was telling me about this...group of people. They liked "stuff" and hang out at meet-ups. The next meet-up was at a mini-golfing/arcade place called Camelot. Plot twist: I'd have to come in a dress and we'd have a Formal Pizza Party.

Get me straight, I'm not new to this kind of out-of-the-blue, do weird stuff, get funny looks and have a great time doing it all-but I'll admit, a Formal Pizza Party was never quite on my list. Nonetheless it seemed alright, and it's just one night-and I kinda liked the guy asking me to go.

As soon as I walked in and saw everyone, well. I knew it wouldn't be my last time hanging out with them. Nerdfighters have this great air to them that just makes you feel welcome and comfortable. I knew not one person apart from the guy I came with, but I instantly hit it off with a couple others in the group and it was the least unpleasant event, despite what I may have thought it to be. (If that makes any sense at all).

Once we emerged from our corner of castle and into the golfing, we did start getting some looks-and some good laughs. It's those things that I love about doing weird stuff like that, it's a good ol' time for everyone. Being on the course and doing polite golf claps to a hole-in-one, mixed in with improvised ukulele/singing and awkwardly fishing golf balls out of pools, it was all good fun. In fact, the only unpleasant thing I remember from that night was how cold it was with the wind from the freeway right across the gate.

After my laughable defeat on the golf course (I think I just stopped keeping score after a while), we went inside for ice cream (it was much warmer inside) and arcade games. It was just a big social time really, and I got to get to know everyone at least a little, and didn't feel like I needed a mutual friend to get talking with someone (although I did spent quite a bit of time with him :]), which again, I attribute to the general kindness and accepting-ness of nerdfighters.

I came out of that castle that night with a range of items, (including my golf ball, which I never turned in-it's green, a matching bracelet with The Boy, and a rubber ducky-which is named Hank) but most importantly I gained I knowledge of Nerdfighteria that no amount of Vlogbrother's videos could teach me. I learned early on that being a nerdfighter isn't about watching all the Brother's videos, or reading all John's book, or buying all Hank's music. In the end, all of that stuff is just there to support a community they brought together. Being a nerdfighter is about the community you take part in, and even if you don't have a great group like CalNerdCon was and is for me, furthermore, I think being a nerdfighter is expressing that feeling of kindness and acceptingness towards others and I guess there's no better way to say it, but Don't Forget To Be Awesome.