Nail meet head. That's why I don’t like going to developer meetups and such - I always feel inadequate. I'm just not as good as the person sitting next to me. I'm a child and they're the grown up. I'm a 9to5r with feelings of inadequacy.
I feel such guilt about it and shame that it just makes it worse that too often I surf pages for way too long counting the minutes until I can get off the computer. There are moments of true bliss working on some code, but it's so hard to take the first steps to get there, having to climb over this giant wall I put up in front of myself.
You should talk to the person sitting next to you. I find developer meetups great fun. I've never met anyone there who compared the size of their GitHub repos! You can get to meet a whole range of people, and if there's an interesting talk and free stuff that's a bonus. Pretty much all of the time we talk about other stuff, where we work, our bosses, the local news, philosophy, bitcoin or whatever - it could be me, but we hardly ever talk about the specific topic of the night.
The hardest bit is when you don't know anyone else and have to break the ice on your own. But the next time there would probably be someone you met the first time...
As someone who probably makes the person sitting next to me feel inadequate during developer meet-ups because of the knowledge I have: Don't.
Instead, try to focus that feeling towards curiosity instead. If they're anything like me, they would love nothing more than to teach someone what they know. And if they're snobby, fuck 'em, be the better person and they'll be jealous of you when their relationships fall apart. :D
I feel such guilt about it and shame that it just makes it worse that too often I surf pages for way too long counting the minutes until I can get off the computer. There are moments of true bliss working on some code, but it's so hard to take the first steps to get there, having to climb over this giant wall I put up in front of myself.