I made it! Seriously, after a year of flaking, either because I had last minute work come up or just being too tired to make it, I was finally about to attend a Women Who Code meetup! One New Year’s Resolution down, several more to go. As it happens, I choose a great meetup to break my “non-show” streak because Trish Khoo gave a great talk about networking for the socially awkward.

Trish is someone I have to know for a while now. She’s a talented software consultant and trainer specialising for software testing. She’s also an artist and designer. In short, she’s multi-talented, and one of her talents is being able to, in her own words, delivery a “stand-up comedy masquerading as a tech talk”!

In all seriousness, social awkwardness can hold people back. I have a strict “people” quota and have done or said stupid things once I am “peopled out”. I also have a good memory, and while a lot of people probably remember that embarrassing thing they did from five years ago, my memory itself has led to awkward situations where I remember conversations other people do not. So I can give the wrong impression just because I remember conversations from years ago that the other person has long forgotten.

However, as they say, practice makes perfect and also, you will never win a debate against yourself. The world revolves around connections, so socialising is important. So Trish’s talk that encouraged practice and to embrace awkwardness was something worth listening too. The fact that she made fun and not a serious talk, as a lot of self-help talks tend to be, will probably make it stick!