This past weekend I attended WonderCon in San Francisco. I had a great time, saw a lot of awesome old friends and made some new ones, took some fun pictures and saw a lot of great panels. Now, my coverage of the con is still being written, and will be up on Whedonopolis in a spell, but what I wanted to write about today was the experience known as “connui”.

“Connui” an offshoot of the French word , “ennui”, is defined on the Urban Dictionary as “The general malaise, emptiness, and sadness experienced after a comic book, sci-fi, or other large convention where many great moments were shared with friends and loved ones.” Lord ain’t that the truth. Cons are a magical place where you’re surrounded by good friends and like-minded individuals who almost-always accept you for who you are; where you can see all sorts of celebrities and footage of TV shows and movies that haven’t been released yet; where you can buy all sorts of stuff you can rarely find anywhere else, and much more.

So of course, when the con is over and we all have to return to reality, it’s a saddening, numbing prospect. Leaving a little world where all of the things we loved and the people we love spending time with are never easy, but it’s amazing how, after dozens and dozens of cons, that feeling of connui never goes away. Even when you’re fully expecting it. Even when you know it’s coming and you’re dreading it, it still hits you.

WonderCon ended two days ago, and I’m still feeling the effects of connui — plus lack of sleep and bad food, of course — and even fully aware of the connui…there’s not a thing one can do to stop it. We love entering these little worlds, these geek paradises, even for a little while, but it’s with hatred and dread that we leave them. While it makes one wonder why there can’t be some sort of year-round version of Comic-Con or WonderCon, at least to me, the more I think about it, the more insanelly awful I think that would be.

I mean seriously, could you imagine your world being a year-round con? My god you’d be exhausted, malnourished, broke, fairly unhygenic and probably crazy after a short while. It would also take away the “spcialness” of these events as well, or so I think. While the idea of having a never-ending con to avoid connui is appealing, it’s ultimately very crazy-making.

I guess in the end, all one can really do is hold onto the cherished memories, pictures, swag and so on from each con while looking forward to the next. I personally don’t plan to attend another con for a while — due to the afformentioned burnout — but I know a lot of people are eager for the next big conventions to come our way. I suppose that, rather than dreading the resulting connui, all one can do is just look forward to the amazing experiences they’ll have at the con itself and try to put the connui in the back of one’s mind, since its unavoidable.

I hope that, whatever cons you happen to go to, that you have as little connui as possible. Even better, may you have no connui or no con-crud either. Blech. Thanks for reading.