I found something out about the Manchester Meetup scene this weekend. Its’ a shocker on a Fight Club / American Psycho / A Beautiful Mind level. First, I need to take you back to 2015/16.
An old Meetup group called Manchester Party People was putting up events to house music clubs across the city. Good choices on events, to be fair, but the meetup organiser was a known arsehole. The guy just lived for arguments. Everything about his demeanour was just unpleasant: his body language, tone, attitude – from the outset you just knew he was gearing up for arguments at any possible opportunity.
I’d reviewed one of his meetups positively, saying what a good night it was, how the DJs were brilliant and the people were generally cool, and I’d linked to his page. Because I didn’t thank him personally in the post, he kicked off. He blocked me after I criticised him in a follow-up blog post. Leap forward to 2024. I set up Manchester Nightlife, and a guy rolls up at a meetup with a similar demeanour, only this guy is slimmer. He comes to a few meetups but kicks off because we don’t want to leave Raft. He leaves me a load of shitty messages and blocks me.
So, jump forward a further 3-4 months. I’m at this WeRoad meetup, for people new to the city. I’m talking to someone there who’s also been on Meetup a while. This particular attendee was in the Party People group back in the day.
It turns out, of course… Party People organiser is the guy who came to my meetup. He just lost a load of weight. And we are all 8 years older now. And he’s still the same arsehole. Bizarre that the Party People guy and myself didn’t recognise each other. Whatever. He’s blocked me on Meetup twice now.
I dealt with a veritable Buridan’s Ass this week: do I run a meetup to watch the Fury Usyk fight, or a meetup to the second Dissociate night in Off the Square? Boxing, or house music? Boxing: the rematch between Brit Tyson Fury and Ukranian Oleksander Usyk – or return to the Northern Quarter for tech house, as we did in October?
Well, in the end I ran neither. Regrettable decision. Watched the fight locally, something I’m adverse to as there’s always someone from my past hovering about that I’d rather not bump into. Spotted one guy who was a prick towards me on his own stag do 9 years ago, then another, who was a batshit anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist, came over to say hi. No biggie. We got on well otherwise.
Just wish I’d made the effort to get out to Manchester early in the pissing rain. Somewhere nicer where no-one knows me.
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