This week, in response to a user request, I setup a meetup section in the Solo Community forum for several major cities (Denver, DC, London, NYC). Within a few hours, I received a dozen more requests from members asking to have one created for their region. We ended up with 19 metro areas across six different countries. Forum members made it clear, they want a solo meetup in their area.
After creating these I noticed that almost none of the requesters even bothered to post anything in their section. The few that did posted something like: “I’d love for there to be a meetup in <my town>!”
Not a single person took the initiative to take a step toward setting up a meetup. Even more surprising was how many of the requesters didn’t even bother to post anything all in their respective meetup channel.
I am finding this to be an interesting experiment in online social behavior. The members quickly jumped on the idea of having a meetup. And yet, they did nothing to make it happen.
I wonder:
- Are they waiting for someone else to take the lead?
- Are they actually seeking to make IRL friends?
- Are they more interested in having an option to have a meetup vs. actually going to a meetup?
I’m familiar with the last option. Every time I checked our Meetup.com I found groups that sounded like they might be fun: singles, hikers, dog lovers, game players, etc. But, beyond checking out some pictures of members and scanning their events lists, nothing was more appealing to me than staying home and doing my own thing.
In the past two years, I have received personal invitations from 3 or 4 the solos to get together. I gave a lukewarm, hesitant “maybe someday if we’re ever in the same town” to the first one because I was still figuring out my own single life at the time. The rest, I declined outright because by that time, I realized I’m not interested in connecting beyond our limited online casual connection.
That’s me though. I am alone but almost never lonely.
Some members of the solo community are happy loners like me but many others post about being lonely and wanting more friends, companions and community.
If the lonely people asked for my advice,I would tell them to get offline, put their phone in their pocket and start talking to people in real life wherever and whenever you can.
If, for some reason, they want to build a true friendship with someone on the forum, I’d tell them to exchange phone numbers and have live conversations followed by some kind of IRL activity. Posts of support, sympathy and encouragement are nice. But emojis and GIFs are no substitute for real connection.
Of course, nobody asked for my advice or opinion. Normally I’d just keep it to myself, but blogging about it is almost the same given the few people who ever read my posts. (haha).
If you want connect with me, feel free to reach out. Unless you’re a spammer, scammer or salesperson, I’m fairly responsive and social. That said, we’ll likely never get together. It’s just who I am.
