My page designer pointed out that when you're out of college, making new friends is like dating. You can't depend on running into someone the same time every week. When you meet them the first time, you must actively set up more opportunities to hang out. This becomes even more hazardous because dating and having friends cost money, and if you hardly know someone, you could just be spending on someone that you really could never be a good friend with. When money is tight, you just can't afford that.
As a 23-year-old woman, this is a two pronged problem: (1) finding women I might like and (2) forcing them to be my friends. So where do you find other girls?
This is how I went to my first Meetup.com event. If you've never heard of it, check it out. They have groups that meet for just about everything: investing, speaking French, playing flag football, drinking wine... what follows is my first experiment with attending a meetup.com function.
Meetup.com: Chicago Knitters Unite!
That's right. I believe in knitting in bars.
Why knitting?
I want to find people that do quiet, money-saving activities. Knitting is such an activity. Very calm. Not much in the way of dollar-dropping excitement, but you can talk while you knit. So there is that potential to meet people and decide whether you'd like to see them in other, money-spending, situations.
What's more, if you're saavy enough with a pair of blunt weapons, such as knitting needles, you can make some supa cool apparel items: shurgs, knit purses, funky hats. And, although they'll take you a million years to make, that's a million years you're sitting occupied at home, or with others, and not spending money. You see what I'm sayin'?
Is knitting really the activity for me?
Probably not. I am no professional knitter. Thus far, I've knitted two squares. I've crocheted some squares in my life too. But you're lookin' at a real-life wanna-be. And although I like to think I can be pretty artistic, I have very little pride in craftmanship.
What happens when a first timer goes to said knitting meetup?
Let's just say, whenever I'm sitting in a ten-person conversation on cats... no, not cats, kitties... I'm a little more than just a little disconcerted. Disclaimer: It's not that I don't like cats. I think they're cute, and I particularly appreciate the ones that think they're dogs, what with the fetching etc. But I've never had one of my own, and so I don't quite understand the appeal of treating them like human offspring and giving them little high-pitched voices to narrate the cat's thoughts.
So half of the group was not my speed, and unfortunately, the set-up of the room and the stationery activity that is knitting discouraged much movement. But I did enjoy working on a new square, if for no other reason than to have other people around me. And I also have high hopes that the other women and homosexual men will have something else to talk about aside from the timely topic: "Convincing your kitty to sleep in the bed you knit for him even after you move to a new apartment and the kitty says, 'I don't want to sleep on that because it smells like the old place.' "
I'll definately be trying this meetup again. But next time I'll be a little less punctual and a little more particular on who I sit near.
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