I've been meaning to write this out the past couple days, since it's been weighing heavily on my mind. This isn't even a new feeling for me, it's always present, but some events just make it feel much worse.

To go into it further, this past Saturday I tried going out of my comfort zone and attend a furbowl meet up for southeast Michigan, try to see if I can finally meet some local furries or just do something fun with my day off from work. I don't know a single person around here in person, I know of maybe 3 or 4 local furries whom either have never met me still or they don't even know who I am. So driving over 40 minutes to this bowling meet is already a scary prospect anyway. Once I get there and see how packed it is, I started feeling anxious already, but at the same time I don't recognize or know a single person here, I'm already on an island by myself. They have it set up so you have to sign in with their group to get a wristband and the line was pretty long, took about 20 minutes of waiting for that. One person complimented my Raichu jacket I wore, because I wanted to clearly display "Hey, I'm a furry" along with some of my con badges, and that felt nice, but that didn't amount to any further conversation. After I get the wristband, I'm kind of at a loss what next. So I go to the front desk, ask about getting to play, they initially are like "Oh, lane 9" but then the other staffer says "actually put him on lane 13" so the guy helping says "Alright, lane 13 then." I pay for the rental shoes and go wait by lane 13.

Here in lies the first problem; lane 13 and a bunch of them all the way down from there are being used for a bowling league going on, with a game ongoing. I sat at the table not far from other groups of furries (since we had lanes 1 through 12), watching to see if this was for real or not like "do I just wait for their game to end?" and the other furries sitting with me at this table end up walking away eventually without ever saying anything to me. I sat there alone, getting more distressed as time passed, as I eventually realize after 2 hours that I think they made a mistake and go to the counter to ask what's up with this, why did tell me lane 13? The guy acts just as confused claiming he doesn't know who told me that and I point out the other staffer did (because he wandered off before I came up there), so they force me to pay again to go to lane 5. Wonderful, now I'm out $24 and to this point haven't even touched a ball or actively spoken to someone who isn't a staff member.

So with this new lane assigned, I head down to lane 5 and see there's a game in progress already, and before I can even figure out whether they already had 5 people playing or if I'm supposed to be this player 5 that got added, one of them just goes and started bowling for player 5. As I stand to watch, suddenly I realize the guy who just took my alleged turn is already in this game playing, too. Not knowing if there's really a way to handle this mid-game, I wait to let them finish to go see about joining. Problem is once the game ends, the 3 others leave and the guy who took my spot before suddenly just starts bowling all 5 players himself as I walked up to set a ball down. At this point I'm just beside myself in anger and frustration and feeling defeated. Did I seriously just waste my time coming all this way to a bowling alley just to not even be allowed to bowl? While I sat there a Zangoose suiter came over asking for a picture together because their friend loves Raichu, and that was nice of them to do, but once they walked off again I was alone. I realized lane 6's group had left so just said "fuck it" and jumped on there to bowl as all 6 players since there was no way to remove anyone. I got to frame 3 before they announce the alley's closing so I basically got a full game in, sort of.

After this I just left and went home. Felt like such a huge waste of time and money going to this, barely getting to play, and meeting nobody. I've been led to believe my whole time in the fandom how "nice" and "caring" the community is, that people will always look to cheer each other up and help each other out. So why is it that I go to an event like this and not a single person ever bothers to waste their time on me? What am I doing wrong here? This can't just simply be the fact I'm too shy to approach others, because even when I have attempted to comment or jump in on something people are talking about, I'm ignored and get nowhere. This happens to me at conventions, the two furmeets I've gone to my own accord, the two furry parties I'd been invited to 10 years ago, hell it even happens outside furry gatherings.

Even going beyond this, no one ever wants to hang out with me, for whatever reason people always ghost me when I meet them. I've had countless Michigan furries where we arranged to hang out, we meet one time, then immediately after they never talk again. Or the rare times someone is good, they move away and I never see them again. I'm so sick of this shit, I needed to let it out. I'm fed up with how fickle the local scene is. And some of these issues even extend into my online friend groups where I feel like I don't belong there either, because people just ignore me when I show things off or try to talk about my problems, or talk about things I like. Is this just because I'm autistic and don't know how to socialize? Are people just pretending they like me because I'm nice? I'm so sick of being lied to and taken advantage of that way because it's happened my whole life, people claiming they love having me around or want to do things with me, but then never do or don't show it.

I honestly don't even expect anyone to read this or care either. No one reads what I post after all. Nothing I say matters. My opinions all suck, people get sick of hearing them. But for my own sanity and psyche I needed to let this out somewhere, maybe see it as a "cry for help" or see if it makes a difference. Just really tired of being discarded and feeling so insignificant.