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This is quite a interesting as I'm scared to visit parties because of crowds of unknown people and when I overcome myself (which is very hard) and go there, I like to be there with my friendly friendly friends, but I'm still kinda afraid of other people. Weird. Or normal.

i'm convinced this is the reason why alcohol is popular at parties

Alcohol helps some people, but it's rarely a good solution to this as you are surely aware.

I don't think there's anything wrong with spending time at a party with friendly friendly friends. Many people do that and I do that occasionally as well, or then just escape into a dark corner with my laptop and spend some quality alone time to recharge. A lot of people seem to do that, sitting alone at their computers from time to time. Or escape into the surrounding areas to breathe some fresh air.

I've been going to Assembly since the mid-90's but never really socialized with anyone except my friends even if I made some demos. My first proper demoscene party was Breakpoint 2005. I didn't know _anyone_ there, but had been mailing with Gargaj a bit and he told me to come so I gathered all my courage and went. I spent the first few hours just wandering around, looking at stuff, and not really daring to talk to anyone. Once I met up with Gargaj, he introduced me to a lot of people and the rest of the party was a social blur for me. It's gotten a lot easier since then but the first few times were _hard_ for me. In retrospect, they were also probably a reason for me to start being less introverted in my life in general, which is something I still struggle with.

Same kind of experience as Preacher had, when visiting Revision last year, except we were making the demo & engine, so kinda didnt have much time to meet almost anyone there. Thanks to SagaMusix for meeting me via IRC :)

I'm not very shy but I have a tall wall in going to strangers and saying "käsipäivää" hello I'm XYZ/123 who are you...

I think introversion is actually pretty common among more technical focussed communities, although I have no idea at which point introversion becomes a real social phobia.
I think almost every introvert (me included) can tell a story like f6 or preacher when it comes to their first public party experience and everybody has to decide for him/herself if the struggle is worth the time and expense in the end (protip: it usually is).
So yeah, no need to be ashamed for being an introvert, most people here know and understand what its about.

What everyone else said.. there are a lot of introverted people in the scene, some with some degree of social phobia .. myself included.

Have a hug! or.. on second thought. Don't have a hug, it's fine :o)

First party I ever attended... I only talked to organizers at the door, didnt know anyone, others were older and scaring, drinking. Spent only one night there. Next we went to Asm'92 with friends, much better :)

I used to "socialize" more. With alcohol.
Now I don't want to drink much.
I sit on my laptop doing stuff.

you simply locate knoeki and suddenly see yourself talking about ponys and silly demo platforms.

If you are someone's enemy, then have a chance to fight, especially with the drunk. You are not an enemy to anyone, there is no reason to be afraid of

Or pretty much anything else really. I'm usually up for a chat, though, surprise, I also have some social anxieties and difficulty talking to people sometimes (:

...but you can always try ^^

@Factor6: I think you will be afraid during the first 20 minutes, and then forgot about every fear during the whole party :D

What aegis said!
Most sceners only know me heavily drunk, because that is how they always see me at parties...most also think i am as drunk as at parties when not at parties.
But that ain´t so! ;)
Demoparties being the only thing i visit with more than 10 people led me to being drunk all the time then because of my own social phobia, especially with very many ppl in one place!

I guess i could drop the alcohol by now that i know most of the sceners visiting parties...and i´ll try next Revision...atleast until compo-night, haha!

I have social anxiety and it would be fun to be on demoscene parties, but there's so many things that I don't dare to do. I'm also bad at getting essential things done on a trip, like finding a place to sleep and what not. I would probably just find someone to talk to and stick wih him/her like a weirdo with no friends... Sure drinking would make it a bit easier, but I'm trying to stop drinking because I'm back on SSRI anti-deps and alcohol should NOT be mixed with those. The frustration is real. Easier to just jump off a bridge.

eightbitbubsy: well you know people from #protracker so we could meet and be like "hey that pattern sounds wonderful" "its hissing in 8bit... isnt it?" :D

Since last year, Revision has a newbie mentoring programme for people who have never been to a demoparty. It's not just for people who are new to the scene and it can help with getting to know people! ;)
Maybe other parties can adopt this concept, especially since smaller parties seem like a much better way to get to know people.

And to add to the dozens of similar stories: Went to Breakpoint 2008, knew noone except the school friend who went with me, met Elfan who I knew from Nectarine and shared a hotel room with, met Prince who sat on the opposite side of our table, and apart from that talked to almost no other people. Breakpoint 2009 was much different where I decided to meet more people I knew from IRC and Pouet. Alcohol was absolutely not necessary. ;)

lies!

have met quite a few sceners suffering from social anxiety or some form of aspergers's. i don't suffer from it myself, so can't really give any useful advices, but i would like to believe demoparties are mostly safe to attend for people with social anxiety. tagging along and just hanging out chatting occasionaly is common on demoparties, even with other sceners you don't know very well (or at all). just don't bget creepy / stalk. :P

random sceners usually like talking about making graphics, music or code, so that's usually a nice ice breaker topic when meeting random scener: asking what they been working on for the compos.

the more parties you attend you just keep meeting more people and keeping tabs with them over the internets (and flamewars on pouet) so you get to know what topics interest each person and chats become less awkward :)

alcohol helps but is not mandatory. have hanged out with plenty of non alcoholic drinking sceners and it's just as fun, with the advantage of recalling the next day a lot more of what happened the previous night.

what ps said.

Just remember do not try to start a conversation with me if I am coding and deadlines are ahead and you will be safe.

;)

I remember being very scared at my first demoparty as well, took me maybe a year or two of going to various parties to really feel eased up to explore outside my group of friends. Now I know a million people so any party is usually good :)

And feel free to approach me, scared people! I'm really friendly and like Knoeki I like to ease new people in, make them feel like they have a place there :)

also there must still be some people you'd love to say hi to or talk about their work, check slengpung how they look and just keep an eye open when walking around ;) it kinda takes the awkward edge off when you can say 'hi ps, nice to meet you. that demo you did last week was pretty terrible!' instead of just randomly introducing yourself in groups. :)

what actually is the most challenging thing at parties these days (to me at least) is this huge "grey area" of sceners you know you should know but cant quite recall their name/handle or what you were talking about the last time you met.
that makes for some pretty emberassing situations here and there but in the end its all good because i saw it happen to others just as well ;)

we need an app that takes a picture of a face, runs it across the slengpung db and returns the handle ;P

Just a fun little sidenote: as soon as I mentioned Preacher was at the party, everyone went nutso and wanted to meet him. :)