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Comment by btrettel | Hacker News Reader

I've thought about starting my own community group, but I am pretty skeptical that I could find many folks interested in what I'm interested in. I think this is a real barrier to many. Any advice?

To elaborate, in the US, existing groups tend to be narrow and uninteresting to me. In most places I've lived, it's basically a mix of sports/fitness groups, art groups, "tech" (i.e., programmer; traditional engineers like myself won't feel entirely welcome), social dancing, popular fiction reading group, activism, etc. I can't say that any of these genuinely interest me and/or would be a good place to meet people. At a fitness class, for example, many people aren't interested in casual conversation as far as I'm aware. And without genuine interest in the subject, it's hard to engage.

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Personally, I've found that running clubs attract diverse groups and tend toward activities that create ample opportunities for smalltalk and meeting people with shared interests outside of the sport. This doesn't hold true for most other sporting activities, in my experience.

Interesting. I was a decent runner in high school, way back. I'm a cyclist now, but I found that cycling groups tend to either be focused on athletic performance or activism and I don't particularly care for either at this point. I'll have to try some running groups as there are a lot of local ones.

That's interesting, but in my experience cycling groups are the most social individual sports groups (even more social than many team sports even). Even the performance focused groups tend to stop at the coffee shop for some banter after the ride, and some less performance oriented groups seem to be more focused on the coffee than even the ride itself.

Are you talking about road cycling or mountain biking? My experience is definitely with the former. I think it helps that in group rides you automatically end up riding next to someone new and chatting along. Easily breaks the ice.

Hmm... okay, I'll try some more local cycling groups as there are a lot of them. Maybe one lesson to take from all the comments I'm reading here is that there's a lot of variation between groups.

I'm thinking road cycling. When I was in grad school, a decade ago, I briefly participated in a student road cycling group. It was very performance oriented as I recall. I was definitely slower than them and my heavy steel commuter bike contrasted strongly with their lighter racing bikes. I talked to some of them, but not during the rides. I was older than the vast majority of them as I recall and in retrospect that might have prevented me from making friends there.

15 years ago I started cycling, by going to amateur XC races. I did that for almost 10 years and it was fun, I got some friends doing it and it worked great for a while. A combination of cycling injury and many people leaving the country ended that endeavor, but it is an example of some simple and practical approach. I was not even looking to socialize, but improve my sedentary life, I found others with similar interests.

I have a childhood friend that is cycling, but he lives in the Netherlands. There people who are cycling more than daily drivers are interested in athletic performance or activism and it kind of sucks, but he got friends skiing and scuba diving, as long as there are common interests you will find some decent people to socialize with.

My experience was sadly quite the opposite. When I moved to my current city two decades ago, I started attending a run club because I wanted to train for my first marathon and figured it would be a great opportunity to meet new people. Unfortunately, the group was extremely insular and eventually realized I was wasting my time expecting the group to engage with me in any meaningful way.

Funny, I've had the exact same thought, and doubts, as yours. I really dislike communities focused on a certain topic, as I really don't see myself as part of any one thing that defines me. If I were doing rock climbing, I still wouldn't enjoy talking about rock climbing the entire day with my rock climbing friends; my interests are much wider. Which is the reason I do not participate in any community on- and off-line.

I honestly wish social clubs were a thing, and you would get introduced to people from all walks of life. Perhaps this is the reason the Internet is so polarizing: people don't intermingle much, they live in their small niches and echo chambers, and have to put real effort and go out of their way to engage with someone that has a new perspective. Algorithms entrenching us deeper within the same niches are to blame.

I enjoy socialising (sparingly), but I'm not an extrovert and herding people is not my definition of fun, yet I keep feeling I should be the one to form whatever community I and people like me would enjoy participating in. What a conundrum. It's also much easier to make and advertise a club around a topic than an open one for "interesting" people without sounding like a posh cult for elitists.

I relate very closely, having had the same thoughts over the past few years. Social clubs sound good in theory, but in my experience it's difficult to connect with people without a central activity or subject to act as a touchstone. It's a frustrating sort of paradox where the best social groups diverge greatly from their core theme, and yet the core theme is necessary to reach and maintain critical mass.

I think it's possible to get around the problem, but it would take just the right structure; there should be activities, but enough of a variety to have something for people from all walks of life. But also not too much of a variety so as not to appeal only to those interested in constantly trying new things. Perhaps a set of some baseline, fairly universal activities, with space for individual members to share their own hobbies and interests from time to time in a group setting? I don't know exactly, but it's something I've been considering for a while, and it feels like there must be an answer somewhere in there.

> I think it's possible to get around the problem

Could you articulate what you perceive to be a problem with all that?

I think the problem comes when certain topical groups interpret their mission narrowly. Based on your other nearby comment, you mention your experience with a rock climbing group that doesn't so narrowly focus on rock climbing. I think that's the right way to do it.

There was one group I used to attend where I was definitely not as interested in the topic as others. I recall someone at the meetup said to me something along the lines of "If you don't agree with X then why are you here?" Well, I attended because I found a lot of interesting people there, and I know I wasn't the only one. Some organizers made the meetups unstructured conversation, which was great for me. Honestly, I'd just like to meet other people interested in a particular topic. Other organizers preferred meetups with more specific assigned discussion topics. I rarely cared much about the assigned topics and they made the unstructured conversation I wanted to have much more difficult or even impossible (particularly for the online meetups). I don't attend those meetups any longer in part because of the assigned topics.

If you don't mind, could you share a bit about those meetups with unstructured conversation? I would like to attend something like that, some keywords to look for would be helpful.

If the website/Facebook event/email/etc. mentions an assigned topic, then it's not likely going to have much unstructured conversation. Other than that, I can't think of any reliable ahead of time signs to look for. One thing I think I've learned from reading tons of comments today at HN is that I should try more meetups just to see what they're like because you can't really know ahead of time.

Anyhow, the specific group I was referring to was LessWrong meetups in 3 different cities over a period of about a decade. As I said, I'm not quite aligned with their philosophy, but I did find a bunch of interesting people at those meetups.

I can't speak for anyone else, but in trying to pursue groups with relevant interests, I've run into one of three issues:

1. The club/etc follows its core conceit closely, and discussions and such naturally don't branch off far

2. Connected to 1, the folks who actively engage in a club are typically very invested in the subject; when my interest is more casual, it can be difficult to connect with those more passionate

And 3., most critically, the things I am passionate about are too niche to sustain dedicated clubs anywhere but the most dense of population centers, which for a variety of reasons I have no interest in relocating to.

I would appreciate a group where a variety of unique interests is encouraged. I enjoy interacting with people who are passionate in their own ways, even when they don't necessarily line up with my own passions; I realize there are clubs and such out there which likely fit my preferences, but I have yet to find one reasonably nearby.

> If I were doing rock climbing, I still wouldn't enjoy talking about rock climbing the entire day with my rock climbing friends

Um, have you actually tried? I have a "rock climbing" friends group, and it's rare that we talk rock climbing outside an actual climbing outing. Some of them are at the climbing gym 2-3x a week, some of them 1x a week, some join only once every 1-2 months. But what we do a lot is hang out just for dinner, for some hike on the weekend, going to a concert, whatnot. Climbing was really just the initial excuse to meet, by now it's only a detail we all more or less do now and then.

Maybe you are overthinking this.

> I honestly wish social clubs were a thing, and you would get introduced to people from all walks of life

They are. Elks, Knights of Columbus, etc. Not as popular with the younger crowd, but nothing is stopping you from joining or starting your own.

As for the point around feeling like you have to talk about rock climbing all day: you don't. Rock climbing is just the entry point, which allows for a shared conversation topic before you branch into other things.

As another commenter said, at lot of the fraternal organizations are religious. The Elks site says to be eligible for membership, you must 1) Be at least 21 years of age; 2) Believe in God; 3) Be a citizen of the United States who pledges allegiance to and salutes the American Flag; 4) Be of good character. The Knights of Columbus says membership is limited to practicing Catholic men.

That works for some people. I like the activity-based groups. Besides the sports groups, a community garden is also good.

That's strange, I know a bunch of guys in my hometown who hang out at the Elks who aren't religious. Most of them are probably confirmed or at least baptized though.

Yeah, the Eagles Lodge in my town is pretty lax about it - they do want you to do one community service day a year but that to them was basically a "substitute" for "be of good character and righteous" or whatever.

I think you’re perhaps too narrowly defining what a lot of groups are for. Take climbing for example, as you did - I met tons of folks while climbing, but we talked about all sorts of things. In between attempting routes it’s mostly just shooting the shit.

My point being that a lot of clubs or groups, especially in fitness, don’t have a rule against talking about other stuff. In fact, most are incredibly conducive to it.

Historically, social clubs were a thing!

You've got gentlemen's clubs of the kind that Phileas Fogg from "Around the World in 80 Days" belonged to. They were leisure spaces where the rich could socialize with each other, dine from a wider menu than their own domestic staff could offer, access a bigger reading library, and organize group activities like automotive clubs and regattas.

Then you've got private societies like the Freemasons and the Rotary Club, which were usually segregated by gender and race, had a religious component, and offered services like mutual aid and insurance.

That's what churches are (also) for. (A synonym of 'church' is 'gathering'.)

What interests you? Id start one. In a densely populated city, odds are you will find a few people.

I'll try starting a more niche group just to see what happens. Maybe I'm wrong and I'll find a handful of interesting people. Still, there's a nagging feeling in the back of my mind. If the number of people interested in a topic is small enough, reaching them can be really hard. And only a fraction of them would be willing/able to meet.

As for specific topics, there are many I could pick. My problem isn't a lack of interest in general, just a lack of overlap between my interests and what's available. One I think might have a decent chance of success would be a group based around information searching, both online and in the real world. Despite being an engineer, I've often found a lot of common ground with librarians. I love talking about the subject and could learn a lot about it. It's not going to become irrelevant any time soon either, even with LLMs, due to information siloing.

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