IRL

[calzephyr]

I went to my first IRL meet up recently. It was fun! Have you gone to one? Have you organized one?

Comments

yes, yes, and opinion/tips

[brainwane]

I've tried to organize several, sometimes successfully ("success" here meaning that at least one non-me person comes), and attended several, including a few that I did not organize.

If I'm going to another city, I often post on MeFi IRL and see whether anyone wants to meet up while I'm there. Sometimes it works - if nothing else it often leads to a single person coming, and then I get to have a novel conversation.

My possibly heretical opinion/assumption is: people who have MetaFilter user accounts are more likely than the median Internet user to be anxious about meeting strangers and socializing in an unstructured face-to-face setting, and to find, on the day of the event, that looking forward to a "meet and make conversation with these strangers" event has not filled us with enough anticipation to overcome the inertia and default rhythms of our everyday lives (which is a factor in people changing an RSVP choice from "going" to "not going").

This is why "come do this specific thing with me" (watch a play, knit, sing karaoke), "let's piggyback on an existing structured social thing" (asking to meet MeFites who are going to the same convention/festival as me), and "let's attend this rare event" (watch a one-night-only entertainment event, "I'm only in town this week") are more likely to draw people to actually attend -- they help overcome the inertia and the anxiety.

Re: yes, yes, and opinion/tips

[jesse_the_k]

Excellent advice! If we wanted to talk to random strangers in person we would already be doing that.