Get to know us

“The typical expression of opening friendship would be something like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one!”

This quote by C.S. Lewis sums up what Tuesdays with Mobot is all about. We are a bunch of friends who like all kids of fandoms that get together for real, authentic friendships.

The quote is even more central to how I became a part of the group.

One day I interviewed group leader Aaron for a story and while looking around at the toys and goodies in his office we started discussing Star Wars and such. It eventually led to me watching Doctor Who, getting hooked on it and joining the group during Doctor Who School.

I guess you could say one of the best parts to my job is the chance to meet these fine people.

Aaron and Moira let us invade their home every week and it has somewhat become everyone’s second home.

We have become our own little nerd family.

In fact, I went over there one day this week to play…ummm…I mean help sort action figures in Aaron’s collection. It was fun to feel like you were 8-years-old again seeing some of these toys for the first time, or the first time in a long time.

Next week we get to do a panel that’s a little different from others that we’ve done before.

We are going to a school to talk to a social skills class about the social aspects of our group. We’ll talk about how we interact, what we have in common and how those things have brought us all together.

Then we’ll field their questions, helping them with some conversation skills.

Part of the goal for our social media outreach is to help others see there are ways to interact with others in real and meaningful ways in real life, offline.

For these kids, that’s often difficult. But we hope to show them that it’s possible to find people who have the same interest as you. And in the end, become vested in you as a person as well.

And, maybe we’ll just talk about “Doctor Who” and “Star Wars” for an hour. You never know.

But we hope they see a true picture of friendship and the value of stepping out of what’s comfortable or difficult to find real friendships.

That was hard for me. I’m not a social person by nature. In fact, I’m perfectly happy staying home with my dog most nights.

But that step I took with this group, and the first year sitting quietly in the background, resulted in getting to know a great group of people who are now treasured friends.