Went to my first tech meetup alone and spent the first twenty minutes standing near the snack table pretending to check my phone

Signed up weeks ago, almost didn't go, showed up exactly on time which meant walking into a room of people who already seemed to know each other. Did the classic thing where you hover near the food and look busy on your phone. Eventually a guy also standing alone asked what I was working on, which turned into forty minutes of actual conversation about a project he was building. Left with one LinkedIn connection and a slightly less terrifying idea of what these things are like. Going to the next one already feels less impossible.