~~ pathetic, I know.

Partly, it's that I feel so weird about being on all these BNF-watcher/lister journals. I suppose it's just... the idea ruins my little dream of community, since my not feeling left out and marginal and misunderstood and lost is always such a precarious thing. I cling to the people who I like and who seem to understand me, and the sheer -publicness- of the BNF-label judgement bothers me. It's hard to find the balance between what is "fandom" and who are people who like -you- and who are "fandom acquaintances" who see you as part of the mass and would leave without saying goodbye (and when you take one for the other, oh, therein lies angst and disappointment, especially if you tie all this to the lj flists).

I've felt like I was part of a community-- not exactly of friends-- more of peers. Which makes me not-quite-comfortably halfway between two camps-- the people who watch (and gossip about the mass of the fandom) and the people who're just friends, hanging out. I suppose people listen to me, but it feels precarious because I'm don't often talk normally to people. I'm like... fannishness personified. In a way, that's plebish and dorky (and well, not true of me, even though 1 and a half years later, I'm -still- obsessed with H/D fic). I both take it too seriously for the average fan (regardless of intelligence or dedication to ship or fandom) and not seriously enough for the fandom scholars, I'd think.

Somehow I find myself in the ridiculous position of wishing I was more "real", which means less fannish, probably...? I mean, I'm not here for the intellectual discussion by any means. It's just. Frankly? Squeeing reeeeeally bloody annoys me. There you have it. Mass squeeing, anyway. Hate. It. Makes me hate the source, too. Like, I have to actively look beyond a piece's popularity on order not to have a knee-jerk hate reaction. Like. The `Peter Pan' movie. I really enjoyed it, though I had serious issues with the romance aspects & the ending. But I'd have been much happier with the movie if everyone and their brother didn't squee about it. 'Cause. It's -mine-. It's been mine for -ages-. And now. It's -public property-. Delusional as this whole train of thought is-- it's just how I feel.

Still. I know that's the foundation of fandom. This is why I'm not in a bunch of fandoms, see. I pretty much can't stand fannishness. Of anything. Ha. I realize how hypocritical this is, since I so passionately adore so many things. It's just-- doing it publically & en masse just gives me shudders.

And yet. You know. Fandom is such a great social engine-- because that's what ties people together, isn't it? Common interests, common passions. And in the end, whether you're "in" or not depends on whether you -feel- like you're in or not, whether you want to be enough to project that outwards. People seem to respond to being wanted.

( For some reason, my actual -point- here was `how to break in'. So I sort of made a list. Again. )