I am an introvert. However, because I am pursuing small adventures in retirement, I recently signed up for a meeting of a fountain pen club in my city. They had reserved a separate room at the Hard Rock Café, which I can reach by bus, unlike most of their meetings, so I gathered up my resolve and went. I have few innate social skills, but based on my experiences at fountain pen shows, fencing tournaments, educational conferences, writing seminars, and every other interest group I have ever attended, I figured I would be okay. They tend to be attended by people who carry the social ball for me.

Of course, when I entered, the organizer couldn’t find my name on the list at first, and I figured I would run away. However, I was wearing a sleeveless shirt, and forgot I have a tattoo of a dragon holding a fountain pen, so it was clear I was in the right place. People exclaimed over it. “Are you a collector?” demanded one of them, and I sort of froze and stammered. I don’t consider myself a collector, even though I currently have thirty or forty pens, some of them vintage. I just like to buy fountain pens, and I write with them, the same way I enjoy writing on a keyboard at a high speed, the same way I used to write all my notes in Gregg shorthand.

People were seating themselves at four-person tables, so I took a seat with three people I didn’t know, apparently taking the seat of someone else who had been headed there, because he said, “Oh, I’ll sit somewhere else then,” when it was too late for me to move.

The conversation was sedate and stilted, and all three people already sitting at my table knew each other. One of the people shared a bunch of very pretty fountain pens. I learned swiftly that one of them was a former administrator at various universities, one taught a wine-tasting course, and one was a professor. All three were teachers of one sort or another, as am I, so I told them where I used to work.

It turned out two of them knew a man who used to be a member of my department at my old place, and spoke of him highly. He was a very difficult person to supervise, being a blustery Vietnam veteran/historian/poet with an uneven emotional temperature, though I was very fond of him. I fear my nuanced attitude came across rather clearly despite my attempt to praise him. It took them slightly aback.

One of the people mentioned the language she taught, so I commented that my brother spoke that language, and it turned out she knew my brother well. They had gone to the same graduate school and had spent time in the same foreign country. She spoke highly of him, as did I because he really is extraordinary, but that conversation soon faltered.

After I had a nice salad, I excused myself to go home.

So did the woman who knew my brother, announcing that she was an introvert.

Apparently I sat at a table with the people in the room who were most like me. Memo to self: Sit with the crazed, chatty crowd next time. If there is a next time.