August 4, 2010
On Monday evening I attended Westminster Skeptics, and the speaker mentioned how the format was “unfriendly” — a speaker at the front, speaking, and everybody else watching. A first-time attendee does not have the opportunity or an environment in which to meet other people attending the same event. This, it was argued, makes newcomers feel unwelcome within the “skeptic community.”
I am skeptic about the concept of the skeptical community, and attend these events when the speaker/topic combination sounds like it might be interesting — in short, meeting people is not part of my personal agenda. However, there is no doubt that these events are held in a social setting — a pub — implying that there ought to be a social aspect to the gathering. Perhaps Skeptics in the Pub is a meet-up event with guest speakers, rather than a lecture at which you might make a friend.
As regular readers of the Big Bad Blog will know, I am a Canadian ex-pat living in London. As an introvert in a strange city, this presented an issue — how do I meet friends? Sure, there were friends made in the workplace and at the fencing club. Friends of friends. A couple of other Canadian transplants I knew before moving. But this circle was still too small — the group of like-minded individuals that I knew in Canada could not be adequately reproduced.
So what was a person to do? Particularly in a place like London, where it can be particularly difficult to simply start chatting with people you have never met before.
Enter the Internet, and the meet-up group.
What is a meet-up group?
A meet-up group is, quite simply, a group of relative strangers with a commonly stated interest that meets regularly to interact. At these meetings, the strangers gather together to (allegedly) converse about said mutual interest. These are often — but not always — held in pubs, which can provide some social lubrication.
The concept is simple enough: You put a group of people with similar interests in a room. Many of them are strangers, and the point of the evening is to meet new people with those similar interests. Social interactions begin, and hopefully people have found a place where they feel they belong.
How it actually works out tends to vary. While your Big Bad Blogger has never been on the inside of a meet-up group, and is perhaps unqualified to reveal what does and does not work, participation in several meet-up groups might reveal something of use to prospective organisers or meeters.
Case Studies
The Weasels Unusual
Weasels Unusual is a group that is organised through gumtree, with the tagline “Sci-fi, associated weirdness, and beer.”
This was the first meet-up group I participated in, and I think it is the best — I still attend, two years later, and it is responsible for the majority of the friendships I have formed in London. Unlike other groups that are organised through tools like meetup.com or Facebook, the Weasels Unusual is organised by an individual, by e-mail — it relies on a classified ad to attract new members.
The result of this is that people who make others uncomfortable can simply be taken off the list.
Unlike other groups here, Weasels is quite happy to have a night, a pub, and a mix of personalities … and that’s it. The members of the group take it from there.
London Bloggers
I was so taken with the positive impact that Weasels Unusual had upon my social life that I decided that meet-ups were for me. So I went to a second meet-up — the London Bloggers Meet-up.
This meet-up is very different.
First, it fails on the “common interest” front. Everybody has a blog. Mothers, perverts, technophiles, nudists, roleplayers, cosplayers, rollerbladers, hamsters. To say that they have a “common interest” is pushing it. I mean, I like breathing. You like breathing. Let’s talk.
Not so much.
So conversations were a bit more forced that I would have liked. Particularly since a common icebreaker was “what do you blog about?” I blog about everything, people. Everything. Every day. So I’m not sure how to answer that. I should have said “tattoos and unicorns”, but I was young then and had not yet discovered the magic formula that leads to fame and success.
But still, the people were nice. They were there to meet people. Also, London Bloggers gets sponsors for its events, so the beer is free. Free beer always tastes better.
London Bloggers has not become part of the fabric of my social existence, however. And perhaps the cause is that sponsorship.
With each event sponsored, that sponsor gets a chance to address the crowd. And the goal is always to get the people in the audience to blog about their product — in a positive manner, of course. The corporate spin on the nights change them into an event that I will just as happily skip if there is something else going on. I am not certain about selling reviews on this blog for beers.
Scratch that, I am happy to review things on this blog for beers. Send me your beers. I will review them.
That aside, there is something slightly off putting about being taken out for a drink and pitched to, even if you know it’s coming. It changes the meet-up from being about meeting people to a transaction — I get beer, you get blog space.
The lesson here is to know the purpose of your meet-up. Not all meet-ups are first and foremost about meeting people. They might have more nefarious and/or businesslike purposes.
Skeptics in the Pub
There are two skeptic groups near me — Westminster Skeptics, mentioned above, and London Skeptics. Both are organised around similar lines. There is a pub. People enter the pub. There is a guest speaker, who often has PowerPoint slides.
The attendees watch the presentation (and drink beer). They then have an opportunity to ask questions of the presenter (and drink beer). Then they go home.
Your blogger does not consider these to be meet-ups, per se, as much as they are lectures in odd locations. But that should not stop people from treating them as such. After all …
… does it occur regularly? Check.
… is there social lubricant? Check.
… is there a common point of interest amongst members? Check.
… is there time available to socialize? Check.
The problem, of course, is that it is considerably harder to break the ice at one of these events. With people attending primarily to listen to the speaker (rather than meet), it becomes more difficult to start a random conversation with a stranger.
And the basic ice-breaking questions that can be asked in the groups above don’t work. There is no equivalent to “what sort of sci-fi do you like?” or “what do you blog about?” There are no easy questions.
What do you think of homeopathy? … nah.
Skeptic or sceptic? … a bit better, but you had better come prepared for some debate on that one.
I could go on, but most of these either have a solid, regular answer amongst skeptics, or they exist to spur debate. Which strikes me as an odd way to meet people, but perhaps it works for you.
The Canadian ex-pat meet-up
Your correspondent has been a member of this group for a long time. But not once have I attended.
There are plans to attend one on August 14th, but that might fall through as alternative plans are forming again. In the end, there is only so much meeting up that one can do.
At this point, the need that meet-ups generated — to make friends in a place full of strangers — is fulfilled. There are too few evenings in the week, and too few days in the weekend. Plans have generally been made, and a baby is coming.
Is there time for new meet-ups?
Perhaps. Maybe there is an interest I have that goes unfilled, as I have nobody to explore that interest with. But if so, I am having trouble identifying it.
As a new person in a strange place, meet-ups proved invaluable — and I went far too long before discovering them. As a person with an established life in that same place, meet-ups are increasingly feeling odd (other than Weasels Unusual, which is now like a group of old friends). I do not need them. But others do, and new friends can always be had.
In light of this, I, Mr. Topp, do declare that I will attend a meet-up at least once a year.
In the end, they almost always prove to be great fun.
