Lower priority to CS

with my recent experiences with couchsurfing, I decided to lower my priorities to the commitment of this region. I know that every place is different, but the Midwest is cutting up too bad.

Someone blocked me for calling them boring. Someone I haven't spoken to in over a year blocked me when I joined a recent event, and I haven't spoken to them directly since that year. someone in a different city declined my stay because they asked me for my number, and I asked them what they were going to use it for. I didn't reject or accept the request, I just asked them why they needed my personal number. the person just said "to help couchsurfers connect", and then declined my stay request and said "best of luck". What the fuck kind of shady bullshit is that?

After my first meet up, I also learned not to go too far out of my way for anything. Almost 30 people RSVP for my event, and three people showed up. I already knew one of them beforehand, who was invited as a community member and a prior friend. I like to host things and hold space, so I'm still going to have meetups, but I'm not going to go too far from my comfort zone to do it, because people won't show up. Putting out a lot and not get getting nearly enough back. No where near breaking even for all my effort.

Before those events, some would offer to help me co-host events. And then ghosted me ON FACEBOOK. Where I could see that the person read my messages, and just didn't reply. I messaged them reaching out to see where they were at was helping me and they didn't respond until after I said I can take the hint and I'll leave them alone. I didn't even bother to read what they responded, because it doesn't matter how they feel. If they had communicated over the week I gave to respond, it wouldn't have gotten to that point.

These people just don't have any respect for other people's time and effort. not going to stop hanging out, because I want to be in the community. But it's been made clear that this region's community is not the right one for me. And I honestly wouldn't suggest them to anyone.

Abuse of power

After this round of travels, I think I've become better about recognizing when people have demons. People think that they're good because they're welcoming people into their home and treating them a certain kind of way, but they aren't taking into regard the other ways in which they're treating their guests. People can work on others into their home and say the words homophobic and misogynistic things. I wonder how people think that they're good just by welcoming others into their home, but not checking their mindset and morals.

People that enter into the community with intentions to hurt others aren't the people that I'm talking about here. They're very unintentionally about how their thoughts, words, and actions hurt others. But, with the things that go on, they really need more people to check them and hold them accountable so they can see what they are doing to others is wrong.

Racism a-foot? - Couchsurfing members

On this round of travels, I've started considering getting a van more critically. 3 major issues it would solve is "Were can I put my stuff?" "Where am I sleeping?" and "How can I get there?" I would rather ride the bus, but I'm sick of not having a place to stay and no place to put my things so I can really enjoy myself without having carry all my stuff around everywhere with me.

A lot of my couchsurfing requests went ignored by people listed as available. Being rejected has it's own effects, but ignored is obviously different from being rejected. When my requests go ignored I take it personally. Moreso, when it's white men. Most any other group will get back to me, including white women. I have things clearly laid out on my profile, including I'm a black activist and I'm trans and I travel with no money, so I'm not surprised that I would get rejected but being ignored is disrespectful to the time I've taken out to write a costume greeting and request. I've talked to my white counterparts, and they don't have the same issues in difficulty finding a place to stay and being ignored as I do. Not saying all the attention they get is legit or safe. That brings in the issue of misogyny and rape culture to be addressed.

I've come to the conclusion that I need to do SOMETHING different because most of the CS community being fragile, threatened white men is hurting my traveling experiences.