[Cthulhu_]

> Case in point: I grew up in the rural midwest, but had computers. So computers are something I deal best with in situations with little to no people around. Hackathons are the opposite of that. Took me like, 2 attendances to realize that, and now I just avoid them. Hell, I even avoid career situations that put me in that environment, because I don't work well there.

Sounds familiar. I think there's basically two types of developers (and people): extroverts and introverts. Hackathons, 'social' coding, pair programming and whatnots are for the extroverted category; external stimulation (in the form of other people, the ability to bounce ideas off of them) is what stimulates them, while introverts don't need that to become stimulated; they can, in fact, be overstimulated and end up trying to filter out the excess of impulses, which is draining to them, not to mention distracting.