Why WITS16 Didn't Work for Me

A friend recently informed me that I wear my heart on my sleeve.  I think she meant it to be an insult. Actually, I know she meant it as an insult, because an expression of pity accompanied the comment.

But I don't see it that way.

Creating/being in social situations tops my list of needs. I feel "off" if I don't hold a conversation with a new person every day. I'm one of those geeks who speaks to every person she passes. If I see someone struggling to get to their flight gate with heavy or awkward luggage, it takes everything in me to not jump up and help them.

I like to make others' days better. And as cheesy as it sounds, I truly believe that offering a quick "good morning" can literally change a stranger's day.

So when I arrived at the 2016 WITS (Women in Travel Summit) conference on a beautiful Saturday in California, I was super excited for the chance to mingle with hundreds of women from so many different walks of life, with so many different experiences, but who shared my obsession with travel.  Hell, that was my ready-made ice breaker right there.

Unfortunately, I arrived at the conference on day three (which was originally day one, but the leaders later added more days and activities) and took a spot at the almost-full table in the back, my table of ladies barely noticed. Throughout the day, I tried to insert myself into others' conversations but it was no use. Everyone had already formed comfortable friendships...long story short, I felt (ironically) very alone.

And it colored my entire WITS16 experience. When group activities were announced, I exited the banquet room and grabbed coffee or chatted with the vendors in the lobby. The leaders had also planned some really cool excursions that I'd hoped to group up for, but ultimately I just drove back to my hotel.

No new BFFs for me.

I'll look for other travel-related conferences and events...and I'll post what I find here. :)

What I Bought
Info about the Women in Travel Summit
Members of this large grassroots organization are a great resource for solo female travelers: She's Wanderful
I stayed at the breathtaking Air Venice in Venice Beach

The ol' "Shifty Eye"

"All inclusive": Free booze and sunburn wherever you turn.

So I'm sitting in the corner of a hotel lobby in the Dominican Republic, kneading my sunburn and cursing myself for not using sunscreen earlier today. 

Sitting in the corner of any given crowded room gives you an awesome vantage point.  

Case in point: I'm watching this married couple waiting in line to check in to the hotel.  She looks tough. They're like every American sitcom couple. He works 80 hours a week and golfs. She complains about life and cooks meatloaf on Thursdays.

Yeah, that couple.

A slender/blonde/attractive (take your pick...they're all the same, right? #bittermuch) woman walks by.  My eyes dart back to the couple because I'm nosy and I want to read both the husband's and wife's reactions to this ostentatious disruption of reality.   

The wife is busy checking her purse for something, so she's missing all of the action.  The husband, however, is immediately aware that a hottie is in his field of vision. He does a quick glance, and we know what's going to happen next.  He's going to find some way to look again and take in her entire being, then he's going to store all that data and quickly return to whatever he was pretending to do.  But it'll be sooo smooth and quick. 

I love this part. I call this highly-evolved, stylized cognizant method of ogling "The Shifty Eye". It should have it's own theme music, really.

Okay.  It's about to go down. As I'm texting this, he's already turned away from his wife to "check his texts". Now, let's observe how smoothly he pulls it off...

This is awesome. It's like watching a NatGeo promo with the driving background drum beat and the way-too-serious voice over guy...

Okay, he's "texting"...and "texting"...aaaaaand 

BAM! He pulled it off without a hitch, ladies and gentlemen! He just glanced up very directly at the hottie, practically mentally undressed her, stamped the image and stored it in the appropriate folder in his brain and returned to "texting"...all within like 5 seconds.

I seriously want to put down my phone and write "10" on my napkin and hold it up for him, but I don't want to call him out and disrupt his natural habitat. I wish I'd recorded it.  It's a thing of beauty, really.

Seriously. Men are amazing creatures. Whenever a man pulls off The Shifty Eye, it's like watching the marine biologist guys try to catch a whale on camera. You know they're going to surface at some point. But to watch it in action is awesome.

They think they're so slick and shady. But really, this is proof that they're only as slick as the length of rope their spouses give them. Tthe wife is still busy getting their papers or credit cards or whatever's in her ridiculous giant purse, so she isn't minding the environment. The woman is completely unaware that a private fiasco just went down. 

Men are great social chameleons. They'll be whatever you want them to be, as long as the room's colors don't change too quickly and give them away. 

People watching at it's finest. Cheers!

What I Bought
Hotel Riu - Punta Cana
Aftersun Aloe Vera Gel (only available at stateside CVS's)