👥 Social Groups

The Problem

☕ Relationships one might organically develop:

1. Family: this is the first one you’ll get, and there’s no correlation with interest overlap.
2. Classmates: you’re with them for a good portion of the week. The longer you’re in school, the more correlation with interest overlap.
3. Coworkers & colleagues: depends on your work situation, but there’s a decent chance of interest overlap.
4. ☕ Situationships built around your kids and location: zero correlation with interest overlap.

Unless you’re in school for a long time—like master’s degree level—or work in the perfect scenario, you won’t build meatspace relationships that spend time on things you enjoy spending time on.

Deciding to ignore your personal priorities and force yourself to “enjoy” spending time on different things, so that you can hobby with the people you already know, can be costly.

So what are the alternatives? How do you connect with locals to chew the cud of your choosing?

The alternatives

Join an existing group

1. You could join a church or other local religious thing. Maybe not the greatest correlation with interests, but if your religious opinions are important, then you’ll at least have things to talk about.
2. You could find a local group that aligns with your interests, like the Rotary Club or something like a fan club. But if your interests are unique or rare, that might be hard, and they need a critical mass to get started.
3. You could join events like photo walks, but those are often run by a business that needed to have that same critical mass issue to have success.

Start a new group

New group? No, just you, by yourself, wishing there were a second person for what you call a club. The critical mass issue that hampers finding an existing group is even bigger for starting your own… unless you have a local social group that already is doing things about a shared interest and you can make that more official, spinning that portion of the group into A Group.

I’m not at all in the position to do that, but just to daydream for a moment, I sure would like to start an album listening club.

Why are there no album listening clubs like book clubs? I’m not talking about concerts. I mean like sitting around with semi-strangers and saying pretentious things about music.

— Ryan (@ohryan.ca) 25 June 2025 at 13:36

- Each time the club meets, a different person gets to host and pick an album. - Host introduces album and each song. - Opportunity to go around the circle and share thoughts between each track. - Bonus: some kind of technical solution that allows attendees to flag a timestamp to reference later.

— Levi Breederland (@levisan.me) 25 June 2025 at 22:02

Colophon

I am: 🗒️ Levi, a dude named ben living north of most Canadians
This is: my 🏡 digital garden where everything is a working draft