Every time I've hit a point in my life where I felt like I needed to get out of a rut, I've tended to resort to extreme measures. When I needed a change of scenery a few years ago, I picked up and moved from San Diego to Korea. When I became exasperated with cubicle life there, I quit my job and started working on organic farms in Italy. And recently, when I realized I had somehow become a hermit after returning to California, I decided I would hang out with total strangers every day for a month in an attempt to make myself really, really uncomfortable.
Humans naturally spend most of our time trying to smooth out the wrinkles in our daily lives. Actively seeking out uncomfortable situations seems totally backwards, but sometimes it's just the thing to combat a routine that has devolved, the way mine had, into an endless loop of work, internet, and sleep.
Meetup.com seemed like the perfect avenue for this. For those unfamiliar with the site, it facilitates IRL get-togethers with people who share common interests — and I mean every possible interest, hobby, and kink. From furries and cross-stitchers to coding nerds and medieval sword aficionados, no passion is too obscure for Meetup (I'm looking at you, So Cal Danglers).
I planned on going to as many different events as I could find — the weirder, the better — and forcing myself to shake hands, make small talk, and participate in coordinated activities. I would scoff at routine and eat discomfort for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in hopes of banishing monotony. I would show myself no mercy.
As I mapped out my journey into uncharted social territories and started a blog to track my progress, I felt the same latent dread one might experience before committing to a juice cleanse or a 90-minute spin class. It was probably going to be painful, but I was hoping for the best.
These were the rules:
1. Attend one event every day, for 30 days straight. No excuses.
2. Spend one hour at each event, minimum.
3. Try one "WTF Event" every week — something I would never choose to go to under normal circumstances, for maximum discomfort.
4. No telling anyone at the events I was only there for my weird, masochistic self-help experiment
5. In general, I would ask myself: Is this a thing I really do not want to do? And if the answer was yes, I would do that thing.
Long story short, it was an interesting 30 days. Here are some of the highlights:
1. I kicked ass during a wizard’s duel.
2. I learned that attending a dog meetup without a dog is awkward AF.
I was pretty much making this face the whole time:
3. I learned a lot about essential oils.
4. I brushed up on some old skillz.
5. ...and learned some new ones, too.
There are dozens of free fitness Meetups happening on any given day of the week, but I found a martial arts self-defense class that promised to teach me how to completely immobilize a man by jabbing him in the throat. And the eyes. And lots of places. And I'll take that over 45 minutes of squats and burpees any day.
I showed up feeling super anxious about sparring with total strangers, and left feeling super empowered, albeit a little disappointed that the long waiver I signed at the beginning of class had nothing to do with nunchuck training. Maybe there's a Meetup for that? Still, watch out for my knee-to-solar-plexus move, boys.
6. I beat the hell out of a drum at an African drum circle, and it was awesome.
7. Eating ‘stinky tofu’ at a Taiwanese restaurant led to regret. So much regret.
8. But then I frolicked with dozens of miniature horses on the beach and reached nirvana.
Miniature horses with names like Huckleberry, Little Dude, and Jigglypuff (aka Jiggy the Mini, who has his own Facebook page) whinnied and showed off their fancy braided manes and even carried corgis in life vests on their backs. Even the lifeguards wanted to check out the minis. Was this real life?
And sure, I didn't own a miniature horse, but that didn't faze anyone there one bit. They even lent me a mini named Sparky so I wouldn't feel left out. After taking Sparky for a romp down the beach and a dip in the bay, I had the jarring realization that my entire life up until that point had been meaningless, because it had not included any miniature horses.
9. I blacked out from terror at an improv workshop.
10. I got dumped by a dating coach...
11. ...and speed dating was just as terrible as I thought it would be.
12. Hanging out with a badass group of women helped me redefine my #squadgoals.
13. I tampered with products in a grocery store, and didn't get arrested.
I tried my best to align the messages of my notes with the products, which actually worked pretty well a few times:
So, what did I actually learn from my 30 days of Meetups?
1. It's definitely possible to do unfamiliar things in unfamiliar places without being shunned, ridiculed, or murdered.
2. And along those lines, rarely will anyone look at you like a leper if you show up to things alone, or strike up a conversation with them out of the blue. That fear became so unfounded that about halfway through the project it simply dissolved altogether.
3. No matter how different a group of people is, it's still possible to connect on some level (and sometimes many levels!). And I just really love that.
4. Miniature horses > everything else.
Right after I finished the project, I basked in the glory of my completely open schedule. I couldn't wait to do ordinary things, like buy groceries and absent-mindedly scroll through my Facebook news feed. But a few days later, a funny thing happened: I began to feel an unexpected twinge of emptiness and boredom, like something needed to happen. So I went to another Meetup group. Then I went to a networking event. Then I started hanging out with people I had met during the past month.
Something inside of me had been tweaked ever so slightly during my 30 days of Meetups that left me feeling a little lighter, a little freer, and ready to keep at it. I had done unfamiliar things in unfamiliar places, I had made myself profoundly uncomfortable, and I had actually enjoyed myself in the process.
This post was adapted from my blog about this experience, The Meetup Project — you can check it out if you'd like to know even more about my extremely awkward, awesome month.