I used to have nobody to talk to about Tolkien when I first read it - I used to maither my brother but being a brother he used to get fed up with me after a while. So I used to sit and talk about it to his mates until he got fed up with that and decided I was too much of a pain to be allowed to join in with their D&D games. I got used to talking Tolkien with myself. At Uni I shared a flat with a fan but we were frightened by the blokes in the sci-fi club so we didn't meet any more.
Then all was quiet until I ended up working with a bunch of assorted fan geeks, most of whom also liked Tolkien. I wanted to carry on the talk at home...
Well I've said before that I stumbled on the 'Downs when looking up possible origins of my own name, strangely. I liked the look of the site and kept coming back for a look, eventually noticed there was forum and had a look and was impressed. I was in the market for a new forum as I'd joined others (non-Tolkien related) and they'd been a bit pants and ultimately unsatisfying. i wanted to be in a Tolkien forum though, and after looking at a fair few on the 'net found that they were all too weird and complicated, too stupid (e.g. going on and on about how 'cute' Orlando Bloom is), or too cliquey.
So I thought the 'Downs was the best one and joined and was scared and quite intimidated because I'm like that. And then the PC went wrong and I couldn't use it for ages. As soon as I did I got straight back on here with renewed vigour and a determination not to be scared off. And who intimidated me most of all? Yes,
davem did.
