Thread by @goblinodds

think i finally have a vibecamp strat

imo it's all about balancing:

- trying to make everyone feel at home
- meeting new people
- spending crucial quality time with the people you vibe most with

failed strat 1:

year 1 i just buzzed around, spent 30 seconds with everyone

also i didnt really DM or do gcs or video calls in the leadup

i got to stay in an airbnb with a bunch of my dearest mutuals, but--

--bc everyone else there had already squadded up on the timeline, been active in gcs together, spent most of vc as a unit, i felt like an interloper

and it was just bc it was clear how strong their bonds were and i'd missed a bunch of that bonding!

they were v welcoming to me but i didnt know them well in person and i didnt know how to accept the welcome with all that missing context

i didnt feel lonely at vc until i was with some of my dearest mutuals, it was surprisingly rough and much easier to hang out with stragglers and with existing squads that all of us knew i wasnt part of

like visiting another squad doesnt feel as alienating as being the least "in" member of your own squad?

(a lot of this was probably just falsely assuming everyone else was as comfy as they looked, too)

rule #1 of vibe camp: everyone is some combination of tired, nervous, having rough lonely periods, convinced that their sense of bonding is asymmetrical

i kept wanting to sneak off to cry or call bogfriend but decided friends and sleep were higher priority with such limited time. i knew some other people were having a hard time but not that this was a pretty typical experience! lots of highs and lows

when i went to check out the teahouse i opted against it bc the LEDs were too high-contrast for me and mustve accidentally blurted this out in earshot of someone who helped organize it

a couple days later i heard multiple people had the same difficulty!

"i'm the only guy with a sensory sensitivity" -every vibecamper

(apparently they turned the LEDs off in there after hearing this feedback TT_TT <3 v wholesome)

but back to the start

imo making everyone feel welcome (as long as they're reciprocally tolerant) is critical to vibecamp as an event, ingroup/tpot as a concept

https://twitter.com/goblinodds/status/1670570880559202306?t=45g7J8XTOR9X8-2EYG25Dg&s=19

but monk's pointing at something important-- the end game here is to find *your people*, not just to hang out a little with every shiny new person you see

https://twitter.com/mechanical_monk/status/1670473451050610689?t=45g7J8XTOR9X8-2EYG25Dg&s=19

making everyone feel welcome has the effect of maintaining the whole ingroup spirit, so people you actually like will keep joining the community and stick around

making new friends means new people to add to your squad

idk how to deal with having multiple squads yet, i have dear friends in one and vibe naturally really well with people in at least one other and i hate the idea of choosing but

i think a thing i wanted to get better at this vibecamp was letting things be low friction

make people welcome, meet new people, but if an interaction starts to feel high effort you arent obligated to stay

if you vibe with someone, fuckin spend time with them

medium effort counts as high effort, too btw

identifying who should be a distant vs close friend feels like a big part of the game, intuitive to some people but i'm just figuring it out

in my case any 1:1 is ALWAYS likely to feel at least a little difficult; if i find a person i can talk to alone where i don't feel this: close friend candidate

if there are people in a group i'm finding myself chatting with a lot (not bc they're talking at me), to--

--the exclusion of other people in the group: close friend candidate

i've known this person awhile but it's still a little uncomfortable and idk why?: it's ok to be more distant with them, "obligation" isnt a reason to be someone's close friend

(esp. during a festival weekend, i bet) people are sometimes having a bad time so you dont have to write them off entirely straight away

someone i thought hated me last year turned out to be a good potentially close friend when we interacted under better circumstances

having a bunch of potential close friends is great but at vibecamp, and probably irl, squadding up seems to be extremely valuable

(god this is such an autist thread, i hope people who always knew these things are having fun reading it)

so if you still have too many close friend candidates and dont know who to interact with more, i think... focus on the ones who get along with each other

if some of them are in a bigger squad and want you to join my sense is that you dont have to vibe aggressively well with every other person in the squad, just a few, if you can get along reasonably with the rest

ok but this is a lot to do in a weekend, esp. if you havent met some of these people irl yet, right??

so, the strat:

1. pre-event, figure out who you're most comfortable with on the timeline (if they'll be there, let 'em know you're excited to meet them)

2. at the event, stay welcoming to other people but beeline for those targets. there might be a lot of them but that's fine!!

3. figure out who you're most comfy with irl, and...sorry, the event's over! but we're playing the long game here (obvs if you can remotely afford to stay for after parties, DO IT)

5. go back to step one. new people on the timeline to add to the list? do it! but make sure to prioritize the ones you vibed with the most irl

rinse and repeat

part of 1 should be, ideally, doing stuff like DMing, joining/starting gcs, having video calls, meeting up irl where possible, etc.

sounds terrifying as i'm thinking about it but i bet it gets easier as you narrow down your list

i had another thought but i feel like shit so i hope u enjoyed whatever the fuck this thread devolved into

i think it's really easy to slip back into habits once u get home but important to keep your shortlist in mind