On the blog: the last few Tenerife posts, that I’m sure are keeping you in suspense. Cough. Probably another recipe review. Plus I’ve got a few things that have happened since coming home.
On socials: Actor William Forsythe reshared my birthday message to him over Instagram stories. Actor Richard Chaves liked my pic of us. Actor of a, uh, different kind Kat Kyle liked my pedantic grammar comment. I forgot to mention, last week Arabelle Raphael also liked this this joke in the comments of her reel. My comment got 10 thousand likes on a video.
All is not well on the online social group scene. Not just my meetups, but it seems that there’s an issue with other groups on the site, plus groups on Discord too. Manchester Social has proven to be hugely unpopular with certain crowds, if this Reddit thread is anything to go by.
Sadly, I got mentioned in this too. It seems in a meetup with Manchester Psychology Social group I briefly mentioned confidence building as a facet of psychology, and what I said was massively misinterpreted. Some weeks later, I got utterly lambasted for it. I apologised on the Reddit thread, although I’m still not sure what for. I can hardly even remember the conversation in question. It could, I guess, explain attendance dropping off. I did everything I could to bring people together just to share an interest, and it feels like it was thrown right back at me. Obviously, a bit of time has passed since this thread was active. I do want to run another Psychology meetup, but to where, and to do what exactly, I don’t know.
The upshot is, you can’t please everyone. I took a break from running meetups as I had a ton of conventions to go to, plus a holiday, so I was too busy anyway, but I really just didn’t want the heat.
But I did run a meetup to the Northern Quarter Friday for Happy Hour in Pen and Pencil, Before the start time, Get Social launched in Banyan in Spinningfields. This Meetup group is ran by the same guy who does the Manchester WeRoad meetups, and seeems to have a similar purpose: just bringing people together whether they’re travelling or local. I had a look. Pleasant enough evening, good people, still a bit of a sausage fest. 3 of us met in Pen and Pencil, which was utterly dead, so we tried a few other bars but called it early.
The rumour on the night was that the heads at WeRoad cancelled the Manchester group because of an offensive comedy night that Manchester’s WeRoad branch apparently attended, hence the Manchester team launched GetSocial.
Saturday night: There was supposed to be something happening in Freight Island, although I can’t find it on Meetup. Freight weren’t letting in anyway, so we tried 186 but I was in pumps so they weren’t having me. BLVD nearby hosted a hen do of mostly Irish girls from Crewe. The DJ got everyone into what he called a ‘Congo line’ (conga?) that threaded through the bar and out into the Spinningfields Avenue. Then my friend and I shot off to Ocasa, formerly Australasia (samba music) and Lawn Club, which was pumping out cheesy pop for another hen do. Mostly women. Can’t complain.
So what’s happening this week?
Friday night: looks like WeRoad meetup still exists in some form in Manchester, as they return to Box bar on Deansgate, booking the upper level out. I’ll be there to see which familiar faces I can spot, and also to try to badger a few people into my own meetups.
Speaking of which, Saturday night: Spinningfields Bar Crawl with Manchester Nightlife. I’m aiming to get to a few new places this night, including Habbibi and Shiruku. If you fancy some cocktails, smart décor, possible celeb sightings and chilled house music, pencil this in for Saturday and come meet us.
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