Meetup.com is an online community that connect people by some specific interest.
Do you like fishing, sewing, video games, walks in the park, chocolate ice cream? For all of this (almost) there is a meetup event right for you, where you can find people with your tastes, passions, obsessions and disorders.
Surprise surprise, London is the first city in the world in terms of number of meetup group.
How come? That’s simple: huge city, coming and going people every day, crisis of values such as family and friendship, loneliness.
Easy.
So loneliness generates meetups, but you know? Meetups generate loneliness.
This is why in most Meetups (“most”, not all of them) people are not friends, but “meetup friends“. So they prefere to meet each other mainly inside a comfortable, secure meetup event.
Only this way they are allowed to swap from a conversation partner to another one every time the conversation is getting a little bit complicated: too personal, too slow, too insignificant.
In this kind of speed meeting event your life starts stinking after 5 minutes you’ve introduced yourself. After 10 minutes the guy in front of you is probably thinking about what excuse he can tell to skip that old conversation and to know a new, fresh story.
Yet there is something positive, and it is the euphoria that almost all participants have, it’s thinking and studying how to communicate, how to introduce yourself, it’s a challenge in how you can get a “Yes, we’ll meet again”, it’s a rush-summary of ten or hundred life stories in a couple of hours, it’s the equality and the difference between you and a Chinese guy who might accidentally choosed the same city, the same event, the same evening.
Nothing more grotesque, and nothing more fascinating at the same time.
A human television: infinite faces, infinite stories.
Then you go home, satisfied about all the new stories you’ve known, all the new people you’ve met.
You probabily go back any time you’ll confuse your freedom with loneliness.
Don’t worry: a lot of meetup friends are always waiting for you.
Interesting perspective on Meetup.
When I look at various Meetup groups and participants, I can see a distinctiveness that classifies them into two big categories – “interests based” and “location based”.
For the former case Meetup still serves its primary purpose very well – connecting people by their interests. Simply all participants have a clear idea of what they want and what to expect from a group and people.
For example, people in a badminton group, their primary purpose of joining the group is primarily to play games not socialising. In this case, “interest” is more important hence being prioritised over “relationships”. People care about what they play rather than with whom they play.
Furthermore, people joining the political Meetup groups are there to discuss the politics not their personal lives. They are less interested in you but prefer to hear more of your political thoughts and views.
So without any personal interactions can we still say those people are having a good time? My answer is “Yes” as they are getting what they want.
For the latter case it is very debatable. As least for me, those location based groups (ie London Social Group) have unclear objectives. Naturally, I believe, groups with unclear objectives attract people with unclear objectives. Without specific interests playing a big role to form a group, only thing these groups can say is “we are living in the same city so why not get to know each other!”
The way I look location based groups is t they are more like extended neighbours. No common interest or background – just as it happens to be we are living in the same city at the very same time. That’s all.
Good news is, unlike people next door, at least your extended neighbours who make effort to come to a Meetup event are willing (or ready) to meet new people whatever their purposes are. Of course, some people come to a Meetup event to make more neighbours and make their Facebook friend list longer whereas some come for making neighbour friends.
In a simple way it is difficult to meet people with similar interests or mind in these groups but if you think about meeting your neighbours it is the same process. Difficult? Unlike this industrialised world marking friend is not a ready product that something we can buy or choose. Once in a while we need to rely on our primitive senses and feelings rather than our knowledge. Once in a while we realise there is something we cannot plan or organise.
So what’s the solution? As for me I am keep knocking the doors. Repeat the same introduction. Wonder around the venue and meet new people. Still challenging, still experimenting yet very exciting.