Thanks! I'm glad it made you laugh!

And, I'm sorry that those women rejected you. That sucks, but as you're probably aware, says much more about them than you.

Honestly, sometimes it's just not a good fit. There are some groups of people that won't like me, and I won't like them... we just don't fit well. It's actually a really good thing if I can figure this out on the first meeting, so I don't waste time trying to fit in someplace where I'm not going to enjoy the activities or have the same values... you know what I mean?

It's interesting, I took a class in school on "designing online communities". One of the issues we discussed was whether people should have total freedom to choose their online names. When you open that up, some people pick *really* offensive names. Some of them are just socially inappropriate (i.e. you wouldn't want young kids to see them) but some are hateful. And some are just stupid.

My teacher argued that people who choose offensive names are doing you a favor. It's like a big glowing sign that says, "Avoid me! I'm a jerk!"

Sometimes I find that it helps to think about things like your meeting experience like that. Maybe they weren't actually terrible people, but... maybe it was enough of a mismatch (and as I said, it would be for me!) that in a weird way, they did you a favor by showing you that, upfront.

As for my class on writing short films, I *wish* they had been upfront about the filming. I wasted about $60 on that class, and had I know upfront that they were going to film it, I would have chosen to not go. That made me a little mad. I don't think I should have to assume that a class is going to be filmed, that should be made clear because it's not the norm.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I took a beginning acting class that was amazing - and no filming or camera work, despite the fact that *acting* actually does require you to be visible in front of other people. The teacher very specifically talked about wanting to create a safe space, and did a fabulous job. Lots of respect to him for doing that (and for not filming us)!

Take care, and I hope you find some awesome folks to hang with that can respect your boundaries!