I didn’t know what to expect from CONduit. I was looking forward to satisfying my curiosity about a large, general-interest science fiction convention, but I was also apprehensive. I feared that the con would be lame, that I would end up feeling like I’d wasted my time and money. Even worse, I feared that I would feel ashamed of myself for being associated with something so… geeky.

True confession time: my relationship with science fiction has often been an uneasy one. I’ve never denied loving the genre with all my heart. It is an affair that goes back as far as I can remember, starting when I was a small boy watching Star Trek with my mom on our old RCA console with the clunky manual tuner. It is an affair that has brought me mostly happiness. And when it comes right down to it, I cannot deny that I really am a major geek, at least in some ways. (For example, I constantly sprinkle my conversation with quotes from SF movies, and not just the movies that everyone knows, like Star Wars, but also the obscure crap like Logan’s Run and Soylent Green.)

Nevertheless, I’ve always had a hard time fully embracing my identity as a science fiction fan. The problem isn’t with the genre itself, which I have often defended as underrated and deserving of as much recognition and respect as any other creative form.

My problem is the other fans.

Everyone in 21st Century America is a fan of something, and every individual “fandom” produces its own share of quirks and odd behavior. My parents, for instance, are involved in the classic automobile scene, and they’ve encountered plenty of kooks and misfits at their activities. However, there is no fan group so reviled, so scorned, or so stereotyped by ordinary folks as the science fiction fans. Mainstream pop culture constantly presents SF enthusiasts as socially inept, infantile oddballs that are incapable of functioning in the real world. This is the image that was so mercilessly skewered in William Shatner’s infamous “Get a Life” sketch on Saturday Night Live. (That’s the one where The Shat asks Jon Lovitz, who is wearing rubber Spock ears, if he’s ever kissed a girl; Lovitz, overwhelmed with shame, can only stare at the floor.) As Homer Simpson once remarked, it’s funny because it’s true. The really sad fact is that there are a lot of socially inept oddballs who like science fiction. And I’ve always feared that I am one of them.

There’s plenty of evidence that I’m a perfectly normal chap who just happens to like SF. Stop laughing… OK, fine, there’s some evidence that I’m a relatively normal chap. Whatever. But I’ve always felt this nagging sense of dread that I’m actually one of the freaks, like the Comic Book Guy on The Simpsons. The nerd who can tell you exactly what sequence of buttons will juice up the Enterprise‘s warp-drive, but who can’t figure out what to say to a girl to make her like him, let alone go to bed with him. I’ve always secretly feared that people could see that copy of Analog sticking out of my pocket and were laughing at me behind my back. And for that reason, I’ve been reluctant to interact too much with other hardcore SF fans. I haven’t wanted to compound my sins by associating with the sinners. Most of my friends could be considered fans, but they’re generally of a milder sort, casual fans at best. The people who would be at CONduit, however…

I’d heard tales from people who had attended the con in years past. Tales of overweight women who belly-danced while dressed as Klingon warriors. Stories of D&D players who acted out their game in the corridors of the hotel that hosted the event, to the bewilderment of other guests who didn’t know what was going on. I’d heard of the “filk singers,” amateur musicians who compose and perform mournful tunes about hobbits that are painful to the ears of all but the initiated. In other words, I’d heard that CONduit was populated by the very worst stereotypes associated with fans of science fiction, and I was afraid that by attending the con I might be confronted with certain uncomfortable truths about myself. I was afraid that I would be embarassed to be there.

I didn’t articulate any of this to Anne as we drove into Salt Lake after work on Friday night for CONduit Day One. All I said was, “I hope this doesn’t turn out to be lame.” She had similar concerns, but luckily we had thought to pre-register months in advance (at the special reduced pre-registration rate) so we weren’t going to be out much money if CONduit did, in fact, suck.

Our first stop inside the hotel was at the convention’s registration table, where a woman dressed in the robes of a Jedi Knight — complete with lightsaber hilt and several unidentifiable implements at her belt — found our names in her records and gave us our corresponding name badges. Next, the Jedi woman handed us a pair of complimentary dittybags — crinkly plastic sacks courtesy of Waldenbooks — containing a program to the con’s events, a handy pocket schedule of same, and a postcard advertising the upcoming film The Chronicles of Riddick. So far, so good. No breaches of dignity yet.

CONduit, unlike the meet ‘n’ greets I’d attended in the past, was a major deal. Events were happening in a dozen meeting rooms on three different floors. We’d arrived in the middle of the hour and didn’t want to drop in on something that was already in progress, so we decided to kill some time and check out the Dealer’s Room. As the name suggests, this was a room where vendors were set up to hawk their wares at exorbitant prices to fanboys (and fangirls) caught up in the excitement of the moment. The first vendor we encountered just inside the door was a Comic Book Guy selling graphic novel compilations of Hellboy, X-Men, and Spider-Man, all comics that have had successful movie adaptations. Nearby was a table that was bending in the middle under the weight of piled guidebooks for various role-playing games. There were people selling Celtic jewelry and incense and Renaissance-style dresses — there seems to be a lot of overlap between SF folks and Ren-Faire folks — and there was a guy hoping to cash in by selling books by the writers who would be attending the con. My eye was drawn to the action figures at the toy vendor’s table. I saw figures inspired by Trek and Hellboy and Aliens and stuff I couldn’t identify. Nothing that I wanted to spend my money on, though. And then there was the sword dealer.

He was set up in the corner of the room, with a fan-shaped display of long blades behind him and a table full of smaller weapons in front of him. Some of these weapons were historical, some based on implements seen in movies and TV shows, and nearly all of them were cheap “decorator” models with too-shiny gold details and blunt edges. Anne made the mistake of admiring a “bodice dagger,” a long, thin knife with a triangular blade, an ornate black handle, and a “made in China” sticker just under the crossguard. The dealer immediately pounced. He laid a story on her about this being his last one and he couldn’t guarantee that he’d still have it tomorrow if we hesitated and it would look really great tucked between Anne’s, um, bosoms. The guy was totally full of crap, but Anne liked the knife and it was only eighteen bucks. I bought it for her. And then we got out of the Dealer’s Room before I went for those Hellboy collections…

Back out in the hallway, people were beginning to congregate for the start of the Ice Cream Social. Anne spotted a familiar face in the crowd belonging to our friend Brian, who is definitely not a dork. The three of us found a comfortable wall to hold up and while we chatted and watched for interesting costumes. We saw a lot of elvish maids and queens, fallout from the success of the recent Lord of the Rings films. There was a woman dressed in black latex and dark shades; Anne guessed that she was supposed to be Trinity from the Matrix films. She was accompanied by a man decked out in a very impressive Borg costume. Just like the bad guys on Star Trek, he was dressed all in black and had a large, mechanical grasping claw fitted over his right hand. The costume was studded with flashing LEDs, and a small device mounted near his throat gave his voice an eerie resonance, just like the TV Borg. Judging from comments that we overheard, this costume was apparently an on-going effort that this man has been improving year after year.

The person that provoked the most conversation, however, was a young woman of rather impressive endowments who had cinched herself into an old-fashioned bodice that was laced up the back with pink ribbons. Now, I wasn’t sure if the girl needed a larger bodice or to loosen the one she had on, but whatever was wrong with that equation, she was in a very precarious — and attention-grabbing — situation. Her breasts were squeezing out the top of the bodice and oozing over the edges, like blobs of dough rising in a too-small pan. She looked uncomfortable. She looked as if one good sneeze would send her breasts flying wildly about the room. Anne, Brian and myself feared for the safety of any children who might be standing nearby if that happened.

As we laughed at the mental pictures of suddenly decompressed boobies, I realized that I was having a good time. I was socializing with friends, laughing, having fun. And that’s all everybody else at CONduit was doing, too. There wasn’t any obvious poindextering going on, no Jerry Lewis-style bursts of inappropriate behavior, no sudden vocal spasms of “glaven.” It was simply a gathering of people who shared a common interest. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like a dork any more…

Next time, Day Two, wherein Anne and I learn about the symbolic meanings of the elvish language, encounter A Man Named George, and share a bedroom with thirteen other people…