A lot of it, I think, comes down to having a group of friends with whom you have a strong bond of affection and mutual interests -- if they like you, they'll also like other people with whom you might have an affinity.

I had been single for about 7 years when I decided that I really wanted to go to Burning Man, and I set about finding a social group which I could go with. I just happened to find a group which was working on a project in my hometown, and got in touch with them. I started spending time and doing activities with them, and got a new group of good friends all at once.

I got very lucky. I had found smart, caring, affectionate people who get along well with each other. This group is a lot like the urban tribes described by Ethan Watters in his book on the subject. I think what being in that group did for me was it taught me how to relax in friendship, to be confident that I wasn't going to alienate people by saying the wrong thing, or too much, or not enough. It has been a time in which I think I've matured quite a bit.

It took about five more years of spending time with them, but I ended up dating a member who had joined the group a few months earlier. We had a great relationship which lasted a bit less than a year, and are still friends -- we split up because we recognized that we wanted fundamentally different things (me kids, her no kids). But I subsequently got into another relationship, also from that group, which is still going strong.

So that's what worked for me -- another data point to consider, if you will. Best of luck to you.

In response to Glenn's posting today, and what has happened over the past couple of weeks, I sent another e-mail to the Obama campaign (the first was specifically about FISA)

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Obama Campaign Folks,

I have to be blunt: Obama is losing me right now. I've already written in about my concerns with the FISA capitulation, and I'm frustrated that Obama is buying into the right-wing (mis)framing of what Wesley Clark said. Clark was utterly correct: regardless of what he did do in the military, he didn't do anything which gives him executive experience. Most children could understand that point -- that the media are playing dumb about it doesn't mean Obama has to as well.

I understand that part of the crowd Obama is playing to is the punditocracy. But part of the benefit of raising a ton of money -- including my money -- is to buy your way past the willfully stupid people who control our discourse. If you choose not to do it, and play their games, then you lose the people like myself who hoped you'd play the game a little differently.

I'm a progressive. I don't want to be monitored by the government without my knowledge or consent. I want our government to be run not for corporations, but in the interests of its citizens. I don't think the government has any business giving my money to religious groups I don't agree with. I don't think the mainstream media is reliable or even, at a base level, good for the country. I don't have a lot of money, but I do spend some of it on people and organizations I believe in. Like most progressives, come November, I will vote for Obama. But I don't want to plug my nose while doing it.

Want a weapon far deadlier than just about anything the TSA would take away from you, short of a gun? Do this: Take any 5 cent recordable CD, and place it on its edge between the floor and your shoe. Slowly step on it, breaking the CD. The resulting shards of CD are sharper than most knives -- definitely sharp enough to be threatening.

I'd guess that most passengers who carry on a laptop are also carrying this potential weapon with them.

I always find it interesting to see the level of hostility which develops in the comments at Salon, especially for Cary's columns. It seems that so many readers have no tolerance for any personal flaws in a forum which is, so far as I can tell, about asking advice to get on the path towards personal growth. As for this particular LW, it appears that the sins of herself and her ex have been transferred onto all of the hundreds of thousands of people who have gone to Burning Man over the years.

I'm a regular attendee, having gone 7 years now. From my experience, I can say that the community has a lot of the same problems as the broader society, but it also has some unique characteristics which keep me coming back. I'll grant that verbiage on the BM website has a whiff of cultishness to it, but it's really not too different from the self-mythologizing which any artistic endeavor engages in. Once you get to the playa, it fades into the background and you can go on to have whatever kind of week you want.

The LW's ex went to the desert and had a spiritual experience which she couldn't relate to or respect. To me, that points more to their incompatibility than to the rightness or wrongness of his path. He had a revelation of sorts and he needed to test it. He's finished now, and prepared to continue on with what he was doing before. He has probably grown a lot from the experience -- I'm sure it will inform his philosophy going forward, and that it has made him a richer person.

-Chris (Hookahdome)