Fandom lament

Tuesday this week was the second Tuesday of January. This means meeting with the Fearless Fantasy Fans. Unfortunately it looks that we are now down to two fearless, sitting lonely in a café and wondering where all the other readers of fantastic literature hang out.

Could it be that other readers don't feel the urge to talk about the books they read? That they don't like sharing the experience with others? Or perhaps it's just that everyone else prefers a boring life, going home to sit in front of the tv after work instead of meeting other people? What's the matter with everyone!

I don't know. But I really miss the monthly pub meetings with the fans in Uppsala. We were rarely less than twenty showing up, and often some of us would stay past midnight (not me, for a long time, but I used to). We talked about everything, because these were not any organized club meetings but just a gathering of people with a background in the same interests. (The common denominator was reading science fiction and fantasy, but the local fans were also often into gaming, linguistics, computers, science and mathematics. The usual stuff.)

Then we had book meetings as well, and sometimes we did other things together. We arranged to travel together to conventions. And we held our own conventions.

Describing this all in past tense it is like it's all over just because I moved away. I think Upsalafandom still lives. Now I just want something similar over here. To me fandom has always been about making friends, and the last ten years most of my social life has been related to fandom in some way -- online and offline. Now I feel strangely isolated. Fandom can often be dissapointing, and fans can be very annoying, but I cannot help thinking of it as my people, my
tribe.

I have been trying a bit to get into English speaking fanzine fandom, but I find it difficult to get into the habit of reading and responding to fanzines. Strange. I have to try a bit more. But I would also like to meet people IRL. Talk about books and everything else.

So where are all of the protofans that could be gathered into a group? Why don't they jump with joy as soon as they see our ads, why don't they stand in line to come to our meetings?