Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'Speed friending' events

abc.net.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 107 posts

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#91

Post by TheAdamist »

vikingerik wrote: post #18
jermaustin1 wrote: post #2

I've always wanted a "friending" site. Basically a dating site, but to make friends. I work from home, have a couple of online friends that share the same interests as me, but none of my real-world friends do. I tried a couple of these apps, but I always felt the "friend" had ulterior motives. One friend I connected to, tried to sell me on investments, another I'm fairly certain was trying to hook up as if this were…

This is Meetup.com. (Or was before the pandemic; most groups I've looked at still haven't resumed, and who knows when the hysteria will ever subside.) It is easier to find people that share your interests and make them friends, than to make your friends share your interests. Meetup and perhaps local Facebook groups are the way in to that.

Meetup is great for users, for individual hosts it's way too expensive. I can't view the current pricing, but my small group closed after I got tired of paying $90/6 months for a glorified email list + calendar.

For companies that's chump change, but for a casual interest group it's too much.

Tried to migrate the core members to Facebook groups which is free, but there wasnt enough interest to keep it active. Friends with a few people still from it though.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#92

Post by iammisc »

DeathArrow wrote: post #81
iammisc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People want immediate gratification, and friendship is like dating. Often, I'm the first to take initiative inviting people out... This is fine. I don't care about that. But sometimes, i'll invite someone out I don't click with 100% And this is... okay. Even if I spent money and time on that attempt, I always have a decent enough time, and finding friends requires work. People today don't want to do the work. They ba…

That sounds like an artificial and planned way to make friends. True friendships just happen.

I have a friend who's still waiting for his 'true love' to fall into his lap. I have lots of other friends who are happily married now with kids who chose to be deliberate.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#93

Post by selestify »

adampk wrote: post #54
selestify wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ultimately, friendship, like marriage and dating, is work... it's a choice to put in the effort to be someone's friend. But see, that’s just not the case historically speaking. Why has it become so much more effort in recent times?

I know we are talking far away from something that can be proven with data, but I can't imagine that friendship ever wasn't a function of time an effort.

Well, at least personally, it was easy to make and maintain friendships in school where I was seeing the same people over and over again, naturally and spontaneously. It was a function of time, but that time came effortlessly and automatically.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#94

Post by karpierz »

sndean wrote: post #20

Over the past few years on HN I've periodically seen a nice exchange between people saying "if anyone is in Austin and wants to get a beer, let me know." There's normally a response or two. I wonder how many of these people actually meet up? And is HN good (or not) for this purpose? Seems like readers/commenters here could easily have a lot in common, so why couldn't HN be used as a platform for 'speed friending.' Bu…

Down to meet up in Boston if anyone wants to grab coffee.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#95

Post by LilBytes »

girvo wrote: post #82
anotherevan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't have thought HN would be particularly good for this purpose. That said though, we just came out of a 77 day lock-down today, so if there's anybody in south-east Melbourne...

Brisbane, sadly (for this purpose), but if you're ever up here...

I mean, I live here. So why not!

Though I imagine considering Brisbane's circles we're likely already friends haha.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#96

Post by dang »

thedailymail wrote: post #72
dang wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that would be a more organic way to start.

I attended a Hacker News-adjacent meetup event at a pizza place in Osaka a few years ago. I'm not a "hacker" but it was a nice way to meet smart/lonely/bored people in a region where they are isolated enough to make meetup events really meaningful. I hope this kind of thing sees a resurgence post-COVID.

There was a HN group in Japan that met for years, but I forget where exactly they were. There was another in San Diego that met for years (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1308886 - note the response from pg!) Scott and I used to talk about randomly showing up one day.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#97

Post by dang »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #71
ValentineC wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds good, or we could also try having an automatic thread on the 1st/14th(?) of the month, like the hiring ones.

This is a terrific idea and I’d love to see it. The format of a regular post wherein people could post which city (or virtual space) they’re in and up to meet in x place at y time open to replies would seem to feel the most in HN spirit. The regularity of a post and the lack of a formalized format would go a long way to make it casual and low effort. This is important as I think the more formal meetup with PowerPoint…

One thing we could do pretty easily is use IP geolocation to highlight "meetup in $place" posts for readers who are accessing HN from $place. I'm not sure if this would be extremely welcome or extremely off-putting.

I mean, I'm sure it would be both, for different users, but I'm not sure what the percentages would be.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#98

Post by vikingerik »

TheAdamist wrote: post #91
vikingerik wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Meetup.com. (Or was before the pandemic; most groups I've looked at still haven't resumed, and who knows when the hysteria will ever subside.) It is easier to find people that share your interests and make them friends, than to make your friends share your interests. Meetup and perhaps local Facebook groups are the way in to that.

Meetup is great for users, for individual hosts it's way too expensive. I can't view the current pricing, but my small group closed after I got tired of paying $90/6 months for a glorified email list + calendar. For companies that's chump change, but for a casual interest group it's too much. Tried to migrate the core members to Facebook groups which is free, but there wasnt enough interest to keep it active. Friends…

Meetup is key for discoverability. Both because Meetup is where people actively go to look for something, and because they may incidentally see your group/event while doing something else on Meetup. There's nothing else that gives a group local findability quite like Meetup. That's what you're really paying for, although agreed that the price is an obstacle.

Also agreed that migrating to Facebook usually doesn't work. In any group, there's a quarter or third or so who refuse to use FB, and that tends to kill your critical mass.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#99

Post by ValentineC »

dang wrote: post #97
throwaway13337 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a terrific idea and I’d love to see it. The format of a regular post wherein people could post which city (or virtual space) they’re in and up to meet in x place at y time open to replies would seem to feel the most in HN spirit. The regularity of a post and the lack of a formalized format would go a long way to make it casual and low effort. This is important as I think the more formal meetup with PowerPoint…

One thing we could do pretty easily is use IP geolocation to highlight "meetup in $place" posts for readers who are accessing HN from $place. I'm not sure if this would be extremely welcome or extremely off-putting. I mean, I'm sure it would be both, for different users, but I'm not sure what the percentages would be.

Top-level posts, or comments?

It'll also be good if locations/cities couldn't be monopolised by a single large meetup. I attended a few HNLondon meetups back in 2012, but came away with nothing.

Smaller meetups might work better for actually getting to know people.

Re: 'Speed friending' events

#100

Post by Ruthalas »

TheAdamist wrote: post #91
vikingerik wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Meetup.com. (Or was before the pandemic; most groups I've looked at still haven't resumed, and who knows when the hysteria will ever subside.) It is easier to find people that share your interests and make them friends, than to make your friends share your interests. Meetup and perhaps local Facebook groups are the way in to that.

Meetup is great for users, for individual hosts it's way too expensive. I can't view the current pricing, but my small group closed after I got tired of paying $90/6 months for a glorified email list + calendar. For companies that's chump change, but for a casual interest group it's too much. Tried to migrate the core members to Facebook groups which is free, but there wasnt enough interest to keep it active. Friends…

Similarly, all the smaller groups I was part of closed down promptly after the pricing change.

It's not reasonable for small or infrequent gatherings.

Post reply on HN