Look, I don’t want to be THAT GIRL again. But did anyone but me notice that all of these tributes, every one of them, is from a dude? https://twitter.com/benorlin/status/1249309732185280512

Yes, Conway ran in math circles, and Princeton specifically, so highly dudely. I get that. But still... can a single woman out there anywhere tell me about a great and wonderful interaction she had with him? I’d like it, honestly.

Here’s my story: He was supposed to be the big-name speaker at the Brown undergrad math conference. But he had a couple of times agreed to speak somewhere & no-showed. Organizers were worried.

They asked me to have a talk ready to go just in case. I was a grad student at the time. Imagine: We know you were all expecting this mathematical legend, but instead here is a literal nobody who knows nothing. ENJOY!

Anyway, he did show. To thank me for being willing to step in in this impossible situation, the organizers let me tag along to the dinner. I sat across from Conway. And he... basically didn’t talk to me at all.

The end. That’s the whole story.

I was really nervous & excited to meet him & to share a meal with him b/c I had heard all of these stories about how mathematically gregarious he was & how exciting it was just to sit in his presence. But not for me.

Maybe it was just me. Maybe it was that time in his life when he was less enthusiastic about engaging with new people. Maybe being a grad student at Brown instead of Princeton made me not worth his time. I don’t know.

Also? This is not a charming story. https://twitter.com/AlexKontorovich/status/1249084939955470337?s=20

Many people, and many women specifically, live or have lived in a place where objects whizzing past your head thrown by a man are precursors to more serious threats of violence. I would... not have done well in a class where this happened every day.

And sorry to be a downer, everybody. I really don't want to keep being that girl. But, you know, the world is fucking ending so what does it matter?