It's wonderful that we're talking about generosity in genre, but as someone who is often overwhelmed in public settings and is not inherently self-aware, I want to note that sometimes, the deepest relationships don't start with that effortless kindness or instant connection.

I often meet people three or four (or six or twelve) times before they register with me, because I'm overstimulated and overscheduled and all the way over the line into feral when they're shoved at me during one convention or another.

I'm also vaguely face-blind: if you change your hair dramatically, you're a WHOLE NEW PERSON! I'm like a parrot in a hat shop over here.

I love conventions in part because we all wear name tags, and I wear very bright colors because I figured I should give people a way to spot me in a crowd.

I cannot overstate how much I love @catvalente. She is one of my favorite people. I would give her a kidney. Trying to get her to leave her beloved island for my home state is a common party game around here. She's more my sister than some of my blood siblings.

And when we met, I HATED her.

Not dislike. Outright, WICKED-style, let's have a musical number LOATHING. The universe had primed us to dislike each other. Like, effort was made to make sure we would not get along.

She's a rabid fox and I'm a feral coyote, and we had both been put in boxes and shaken briskly before being tipped out into the same room for an AMUSING MURDERDOME.

I was just pre-debut, and she was struggling with a difficult book launch that she was afraid was going to sink her career. We were not in a good place to be kind to each other.

All the things we have in common were the things that threw sparks off one another, but here's the thing: even as we were being unkind, we were not throwing intentional hits. We were not being CRUEL. We bit because we were in pain, not because we wanted to see each other bleed.

And we worked our way through the hurting for the sake of the people who loved us both, and we found each other in the process, and she's mind now. I've peed a circle around her. All the other coyotes can back off.

Kindness and generosity are important. They help us to thrive. But if someone is not INSTANTLY kind, that doesn't mean they aren't someone who can matter to you. You should not tolerate cruelty. But don't demand unthinking kindness. It's not always realistic.