h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

List what I've been to and what I did from 20 to 10 years ago, or risk being written off as just another creepy hanger on and possibly a journalist?

I know who I was, what I did, and where our paths might or might not have crossed. I also know (from working in with the Guide Association) that people touch a lot more lives than they realise at the time.

No sorry, I don't remember sending you to get change from another stall, teaching you that song, checking your lashings, testing you for that badge, or showing you how to make that, but if I did, you probably do.

In the same way, I don't expect organisers and other high ups in various organisations to remember one person who used to be at events a lot but then (because life happens) dropped more or less completely off that scene's radar. I never aimed to become one of the high ups, nor part of the inner circle, and that was out of choice.

It doesn't make me a wannabe, a hanger on, or an infiltrator. Nor do I owe you a list of what I did, including when and where.

Time passes and people come and go.

That post will probably have come across as angry, defensive, or at least passive aggressive.

The thing is, there are times when you can't win; reel off your credentials and it's either bragging (or trying too hard), or leave several bits out of your answer and sound dodgy. I have no interest in digging up fragments of gossip and worse merely to prove myself to you.

I am who and what I am, not my problem if that makes part of one of your vague memories itch.

Angry? not in the least