Tintorera

This thread came to my mind yesterday when I was on a way back home from the dropzone feeling not so happy… I've been jumping for few months now and haven't felt like I'm too welcome to that dz so far. I'm a somewhat young woman and there are only a couple of women on our dz (which is quite small). Those other women are that much younger than me that I don't have too much common with them. The instructors and the pilots are nice (so the more experienced, older people) but as you all know they are often busy and seldom have time for just hanging around and chatting. Most of the other jumpers (mostly young men with licenses) are friends/workmates/… among each other and have their own inside topics to talk about. I find it difficult to make the acquaintance of them and I often feel like an outsider there. I guess that the other students feel that way too, because it seems that they come to the dz only for jumping and after that go home without even trying (?) to build any social contacts there. I've been in a couple of parties at the dz but it didn't help much. Some of people say "hi" when seeing me at the dz and sometimes someone might ask if my jump was ok. That's all. I think I won't bother trying to make friends or being nice and social anymore while I don't get any response. As a student I need some help every now and then, unfortunately, and I don't know much about skydiving so it would be nice to have someone to talk with about those things and get some help with my gear until I can handle them on my own. I don't feel comfortable asking for help for instance with packing while everyone seems to be interested only in their own business and if they get round to next load… Maybe the problem is only in my head. May be I should look at the mirror and may be I just should try harder. But I think it's easier to go just to another, perhaps a bigger dz. What I'm trying to say is that not all the dropzones are necessarily any "big skydiving families" and welcome newbies with open arms. It's a shame, because without students there will be no continuity! (And apologies about my English, it's not any of my strengths…)