The Offline Club

  There was a dream that was having a social life. You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile.

  -- Marcus Aurelius

Relationships and things that matter are spontaneous. When you try to optimize them into calendars, checklists & databases -- they become lame and fall apart.

It's half the reason people aren't social. They try so hard to "schedule a meetup" and the meetup becomes work so people stop hanging out.

You're just supposed to show up at someone's house and do shit.

You don't make friends by agenda. You have cool experiences , build trust and develop a bond.

Where I grew up, just showing up at someone's house unannounced was a faux pas. Scheduling in advance was the only way to do shit.

Was it booked or was it “hey you home” and you head over?

A mixture of the two. "Cool if I come by later" or "wanna go to PLACE Friday".

You're thinking about the wrong stage of friendmaking.

The pitch here is for getting people over the first hurdle, which is being at the same place at the same time as other people, and to some extent, the second hurdle, which is striking up a conversation (as anyone who would attend something like this is, by their presence, signalling an interest in at least casual interaction with the other participants). This adds people to your "acquaintances" list.

The next step is forming setting specific friendships. Your gym buddies, your work friends, etc. Then you need to actually invite some of those friends to other settings, until your friendship isn't entirely predicated on the particular setting. Then you need to spend enough time with that person to maintain the friendship.

For most people, the big hurdles are the "being present", "striking up a conversation", and "converting setting specific friendships into general friendships" steps. Everything else is pretty straightforward.

Casually dropping by someone's place unscheduled is typically reserved for pretty close friends. That's not what this service is targeting.

There's a few furry events in my city which are basically "This pub, this day of the week every week". You don't bother working out who is going, how it fits in to everyones schedule. You just go if you feel like doing something that night and there will be people there.

I've got a few friends who I don't even have the contact details for, If I want to talk to them I just go out to whatever the current event or party is and they will probably be there.

While I generally agree with this sentiment - it's pretty hard to maintain friendships and relationships where both parties don't talk because they're both waiting to be spontaneous.

I don't "book/plan" things with friends, but it makes a massive difference to consistently reach out and nurture friendships.

The way you're describing meeting people seems fun, but half the time folks are busy with life or other stuff to be spontaneous.

I work from home, live far away from family, and sometimes the only social interaction I get each day is getting marketing text messages from HelloFresh. I then can take the time to go speak to my local barista for ~30 seconds and buy a drink.

I miss the days of going over to neighbors houses, ringing the doorbell and seeing if people wanted to do stuff.

That, or college just walking around dorms to find stuff going on.

People are busy and can’t accommodate random pop-ins all the time. That is also a nightmare for certain personality types, and is often considered quite rude.

My dad is in his early 70s and still regularly gets together with people from all eras of his life, going all the way back to high school. Old neighbors, former co-workers and employees, and various others he met along the way. Unlike a lot of retirees, he has a rich social life and a packed calendar with dozens of close friends. This was all due to him regularly reaching out and scheduling a meal or activity, or just time to chat, over the course of his life. Friendships don’t just spontaneously last decades, they take effort, especially as people go through different stages of life.

I see the value of these services, but there's definitely an impersonal and formal nature to them, which takes away some of the humanity of just meeting people IRL and deciding to spend time. However, it feels like there are fewer third spaces people can spend time at without having to spend money where they can just randomly meet new people and see them regularly. Making new friends requires regularly being in the same space with them over time so you can build familiarity. Just meeting someone one time isn't enough for a lot of us to just decide "let's be friends and spend time together". If this service encourages people to hang out regularly, I think it's a step in the right direction.

I don’t suppose these events enforce any dress code?

They usually aren't that structured and for some of them they don't really even have someone who runs the event, it's just self perpetuating that people know other people will be at this venue this day. So any kind of rules would just be the rules of the pub or venue itself.

being out in public , at libraries coffee shops, parks & being accessible would be the analog of that phase.

that's part of the issue I'm raising. people pretending to be as busy as a surgeon. Even parents / grandparents are scheduling family visits with a calendar despite watching TV and golfing most of the time.

It's the corporatization of life that I'm protesting and we all participate. A total buzzkill

It’s not corporatizing, it’s simply respecting people’s time. Maybe I am just watching TV, but I’m doing that after a long day at work and don’t want an impromptu guest I need to entertain. Nor do I keep my house in a state to have company at the drop of a hat.

Drop ins were cool in college, but as an adult, it’s not so fun.

How are these events advertised so that people get to know about them?

Depending on the culture, it's significantly easier to actually make friends at "sanctioned" events, such as whatever this offline club is, or Meetups. Sometimes just a nametag is all it takes to completely shift interpersonal dynamics for a culture.

I notice that the "just talk to strangers in public" crowd really like to apply this to unwilling participants, as if everyone else is "just too scared" or something. I cringe so hard when I see e.g. Americans try to bully through "cultural baggage" in Japan to talk to strangers. "See, not so hard, no need to be so uptight!" Not realizing they're causing incredible discomfort to whoever they're trying to make friends with, misinterpreting desperate politeness for some kind of finally-unlocked freedom of expression. It's not "oh thank god this friendly foreigner started talking to me, my culture is so stuffy and oppressive and boring, now I can make a great friend!" it's "why is this person talking to me, are they crazy, I don't know them, what do they want, how can I get out of this situation??" Whereas in a meetup, everyone there is in the mindset that they want to meet and talk to strangers, and maybe make a couple new friends.

In my area, there are Telegram groups people post to. Some of these can be googled. Others you need to find someone who knows about them.

Some furry spaces, like the Furry Writer’s Guild, have Telegram or Discord links on their websites. (The FWG doesn’t require membership to access their chat rooms, but does vet accounts before allowing them in.)

There are also conventions, which is how I go involved.

You could do your own research and dig around to find local furries’ social media accounts. They may have posted something.

You might be able to send a polite email to the closest convention and say you’re new to the fandom (or area) and want to know if there are any local groups you can join.

Furry or city-specific subreddits are also an option for finding people.

No more than any other meetup in public.

Any rules are more like do not wear bondage gear next to a playground at a local park.

(This isn’t as clear as you might think. No one really bats an eye at superhero costumes. A leather catsuit with a tail, chains, and pup hood does not have the same reaction.)

> Sometimes just a nametag is all it takes to completely shift interpersonal dynamics for a culture.

Well put. If you're at a meetup that's explicitly supposed to be a social event, then it's not weird to talk to people you don't know. Whereas it might be, if you're waiting in line at your local coffee shop. (Depends on your local culture.)

I have family with kids and their door is always open. They are very much adults with jobs, kids and other commitments.

Good for them, but, as should be obvious from this thread, different people have different tolerances for "door always open" policies.

And, as also mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the tolerance will be significantly different for people I met a couple months ago and people who've been close family members for my whole life.

you've got to embrace some discomfort to grow

You have no idea who I am.

Just because someone isn't like you about open door policies doesn't mean they need to "grow". We're just different.

What a presumptuous thing to say.

in english "you" means anonymous third person. Stop seeking anger

It's not anger.

I just found your comment presumptuous, even if you meant it in the third person. Calling it out as such doesn't mean I'm "seeking anger".

People are different. No one, myself or anonymous third-persons, needs to "grow" because they have different tolerances than you.

It's a general statement that the only way to grow is to seek discomfort. Your position as I understand it is that different people have different comfort levels with spontaneity . My position is that I understand that and see it as a blocker to socialization.

The core issue with scheduling life within your comfort zone is that it is inherently reductive, because you cannot plan out your relationships.

The most important things in your life will happen out of schedule.

So I get that you are more comfortable living according to a schedule. All growth comes from embracing discomfort.

Yes I'm presuming that I'm right about this fact of life.