Going to conferences alone

Is it weird to attend a conference alone? Today was my first time attending a conference without anyone else. I am pretty introverted most of the time and I defintely have imposter syndrome. So this is my experience in surving a two-day conference, where I will be attending alone. First off, it isn’t a work conference, I’m attending it of my own volition. I got there on time and stayed the entire day, the talks were genuinely interesting, and because the theme is open source there feels less pressure to force-network, like there is at a work-organised corporate conference. Because I am generally introverted I feel like I over-compensated by trying to be overly-chatty. And then there is the other thing that happens at social events, alcohol. I generally don’t drink and this was the first time drinking in a while, I think I may over-did it and made a bit of a fool of myself.

Why am I writing this? Consider it a guide on what not to do when attending a conference alone.

Hopefully day two will be better, if there is a day two. I may not go simply out of sheer embarrassment but we shall see.

Stay tuned.