Hacker News Reader

Comment by jlokier | Hacker News Reader

I've been to many meetups (pre 2020), had a great time, got to know many people. Nice pub chats afterwards, usually longer than the meetups themselves. Overall I really enjoyed them. I did these in Oxford and London.

But I noticed, none of those interactions ever turned into further interactions outside, let alone friendships or things like christmas dinners.

I've also co-run a community centre (a hackerspace) for years, and been one of the more prominent members that everyone meets at some point, which I'd say is a pretty social thing to do. Those too also didn't turn into friendships outside, but perhaps the element of formality in the relationships didn't help with that.

I think your approach to housewarming is a great idea. Even if knocking on neighbours doors feels like an oddity these days, and nobody else seems to be doing it, as a brand new neighbour that's a great time to do so, inviting people to a party that's low effort for them.

View on HN

Did you invite anyone from the meetups to do stuff?

Yes. Not much, but more than I got - nobody invited me to anything when I was going to about 1 meetup a week for a couple of years, except for suggesting other related meetups.

Turns out people at meetups often have very full lives already, and many are there for the business networking opportunities, not to develop an outside-of-work social life.

So there were LinkedIn connections made, and some transactional relationships. I did occasionally meet some people later one-on-one. (I shouldn't have said they didn't lead to further interactions; I'd forgotten these few). Good and interesting people. But they're not what I'd call friendships. Perhaps the seeds of one, if they went on for years.

To be fair, I wasn't looking for more social life either. I merely observe that friendships did not flow naturally from going to meetups, the way you seem to be suggesting happens readily.

On the other hand, a chat with someone random at a library in the same time frame did lead to friendship. As have many other life events.

What I'm suggesting here is that meetups are a great way to find people interested in similar things, but at least in my experience, I don't recommend them as a way to find friends if that's what you're looking for.

> I merely observe that friendships did not flow naturally from going to meetups, the way you seem to be suggesting happens readily.

You're right, you definitely need to put a lot of effort in, inviting people, navigating problems, finding good people, etc.

And yeah, some social occasions are better than others.

The main point I'm making really is that you need to get out there and do stuff. If you don't even try then you have a 100% chance of failure.

Which is why I find some of the comments below rather odd.

The potential downside to asking your neighbour out for a pint is almost zero, the upside is unlimited. I mean, they could be an axe murderer or rapist, but actually we don't live in a movie and they're probably not, lol.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com