Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus • Hacker News Board

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#31

Post by kscaldef » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 8:50 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #23

jaysonelliot wrote: post #12

I don't want to criticize the post as promotional, because it's the company blog, and it's their job to be talking about themselves. At the same time, I don't think it's a real answer to the NY Times article. You're not going to make friends over one dinner. I've gone to a couple GrubWithUs dinners, and they were great. I met interesting people, had interesting conversations, and even made some new acquaintances. I d…

> You're not going to make friends over one dinner. ... Friendship takes repeated exposure in mundane situations. I agree... so why not host multiple dinners? On your own? I started hosting my own dinners[1] at my house every Wednesday and it's been fantastic. Really super great. I can't advocate it enough, especially for someone introverted like myself who may not want to go out of his way to interact with new peopl…

I'm glad that hosting dinners has worked well for you, but my experiences attempting the same almost exactly mirrored the descriptions in the NYT article. I.e., long and exhausting back-and-forths trying to find a day that works for all parties. Even trying a fixed day, as you did, didn't work so well, as it became this complicated and frustrating experience of having to "book" someone's Weds weeks in advance and keep track of which of our friends and acquaintances were available when.

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#32

Post by erifneerg » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 8:51 PM UTC

jaysonelliot wrote: post #12

I don't want to criticize the post as promotional, because it's the company blog, and it's their job to be talking about themselves. At the same time, I don't think it's a real answer to the NY Times article. You're not going to make friends over one dinner. I've gone to a couple GrubWithUs dinners, and they were great. I met interesting people, had interesting conversations, and even made some new acquaintances. I d…

> For myself, I still have a D&D group…

Oddity, that's exactly why I started to play D&D (…erg, pathfinder) at age of my life.

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#33

Post by Willwhatley » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:04 PM UTC

kscaldef wrote: post #31

simonsarris wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're not going to make friends over one dinner. ... Friendship takes repeated exposure in mundane situations. I agree... so why not host multiple dinners? On your own? I started hosting my own dinners[1] at my house every Wednesday and it's been fantastic. Really super great. I can't advocate it enough, especially for someone introverted like myself who may not want to go out of his way to interact with new peopl…

I'm glad that hosting dinners has worked well for you, but my experiences attempting the same almost exactly mirrored the descriptions in the NYT article. I.e., long and exhausting back-and-forths trying to find a day that works for all parties. Even trying a fixed day, as you did, didn't work so well, as it became this complicated and frustrating experience of having to "book" someone's Weds weeks in advance and kee…

I don't do this based on specific people; it's more, "I'm having some friends for supper this Wednesday. You coming?"

K.I.S.S.-- this admit's of a binary argument only.

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#34

Post by WalterSear » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:05 PM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #25

jaysonelliot wrote: post #12

I don't want to criticize the post as promotional, because it's the company blog, and it's their job to be talking about themselves. At the same time, I don't think it's a real answer to the NY Times article. You're not going to make friends over one dinner. I've gone to a couple GrubWithUs dinners, and they were great. I met interesting people, had interesting conversations, and even made some new acquaintances. I d…

"Friendship takes repeated exposure in mundane situations." Or, in some cases, limited exposure in exciting or trying situations. I have at least one really good friend that I met on a (in retrospect) comically terrible plane flight. I have some close friends I met on a two-week-long backpacking trip, and some that I met on a summer-long volunteering trip. Sometimes, if the initial meeting is very memorable or intens…

When was the last time you talked to your plane flight friend?

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#35

Post by WalterSear » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:08 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #30

In the discussion on yesterday's NY Times story, someone said that your coworkers are not an ideal place to find friends because of the inevitability of situations in which you have to compete with your coworkers for bonuses, the best assignments and promotions. Well, a person is not in competition with his or her cofounders. Would any who have or have had cofounders like to comment on how good having cofounders is a…

If you are competing with your coworkers, rather than working together as a team, to make sure there are opportunities for all, you don't need friends: you need a new job.

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#36

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:14 PM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #35

hollerith wrote: post #30

In the discussion on yesterday's NY Times story, someone said that your coworkers are not an ideal place to find friends because of the inevitability of situations in which you have to compete with your coworkers for bonuses, the best assignments and promotions. Well, a person is not in competition with his or her cofounders. Would any who have or have had cofounders like to comment on how good having cofounders is a…

If you are competing with your coworkers, rather than working together as a team, to make sure there are opportunities for all, you don't need friends: you need a new job.

[deleted]

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#37

Post by porter » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:30 PM UTC

Just join a crossfit gym. Get fit and meet dozens or hundreds of locals in a non-forced environment.

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#38

Post by picardo » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 9:34 PM UTC

I've gone to a few GrubWithUs events and found them terriby shallow, boring and exhausting. Throwing together a bunch of strangers at random and hoping that something sticks is a very bad strategy for making friends.

I'd rather go to a Meetup where at least I can have a chance to learn something with people who care about something other than food. Being stuck at a table with the same haphazard group of people for hours? No thanks.

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#39

Post by silverlake » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 10:04 PM UTC

I tried GrubWithUs out of curiosity last year. They have something that looks like a social network to promote keeping in touch with people, but I didn't notice people making us of it effectively. Perhaps if it was plugged into Facebook in some way it might help people move at least to "acquaintance" stage.

Re: Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus

#40

Post by elliottcarlson » Mon, Jul 16, 2012, 10:08 PM UTC

pmarsh wrote: post #29

daishin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the note -- we will deploy the fix for this issue tonight. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Not sure why but after entering in my zipcode it started me at NYC (I'm in NJ so I expected that) but then other pages like the interests page would start showing Chicago based information.

Same experience - I am in NYC, it started me off in Kips Bay - every time I explicitly change my locality it changes it back to Kips Bay when I navigate to a new page. Additionally, and this could be user error, but it added me to various groups I have no interest in and I had to hunt down how to leave those groups.