I consider myself an introvert. Attending a networking event at a restaurant to make small talk with strangers in hopes of making lasting connections is one of the most frightening things that I can imagine doing.
But for years, I did exactly that: I tried rubbing elbows with other public affairs professionals at stuffy bars that marketing pros had transformed into glamorous venues.
When I went to these events, or ones hosted by my college’s alumni office, I usually hovered near the hors d’oeuvre table, mostly because I was uncertain about how to approach others.
My failure at connecting wasn’t due to a lack of trying. I spent my 20′s and 30′s collecting and studying books on how to network, forge friendships and build character.
Yet, my principal achievement from reading these books was that I became adept at identifying when other people had read these same books. Meanwhile, my networking skills didn’t significantly improve. Even worse, I felt that by reading books with titles like “How to Talk to Anyone,”I was turning myself into a robot that spewed out inauthentic lines to people who I genuinely wanted to know.
There had to be a better way to build relationships.
Carol Blymire, my instructor in personal branding at Georgetown University, showed me that there was.
According to her, the best way to build your network while also making friends is to join groups that focus on your hobbies. So, if you like to go swing dancing, you should join a swing dancing group. If crocheting is your thing, you should find a crochet group.
“I give you permission to never go to a boring networking event again,” Blymire told me.
This was just before COVID arrived, so I didn’t have much chance to put Blymire’s ideas in play before stay-at-home orders were implemented across the country in early 2020.
Once the pandemic cleared, I was eager to connect with people who shared my passions. Since I’ve always found it difficult to make friends, I decided that it would be easier to build relationships if I knew that the other people I was meeting were interested in the same things that I like.
Without putting much thought into it, I decided that I wanted to start a book club that would put book lovers like me in the same room together.
Still, I hesitated. My sister had walked away from her own book club. She found it painstakingly difficult to get members to agree on a book to read, a date to hold events and locations to meet. Sometimes members said they could come, but didn’t ― or they arrived without reading the chosen book.
I decided to circumvent the roadblocks that my sister faced by starting a book club with a twist.
I asked people to meet at a local venue, bring the books they were already reading, and invited them to do a “show-and-tell” CliffsNote-like summary of their books for the group. I also asked them to read the first line of their books.
I posted the notice of my first weekly gathering on Meetup.com in April 2022. I then invited two friends to join me, along with anyone else who wanted to share the book they were reading with others.
Connecting with other people through books seemed natural, but I didn’t know if anyone would come. I was prepared to read my book quietly if no one else showed up. Fortunately, both my friends came, and we were joined by one other person we didn’t know.
After the first event, more people started coming, and I started making new friends almost immediately.
The group’s membership grew exponentially. It wasn’t long before I was inviting my new friends to dinners and other events. Because we had established we shared a similar passion, it was easy to branch out from there and find other things to do and talk about.
Then, in early October 2022, I hosted a party for my book club friends, and I also invited my old friends. Two dozen people showed up and I was thrilled with the turnout.
I wasn’t the only one who was happy about it. During the party, I connected a friend who was being treated for breast cancer to another friend who had recently completed treatment. I don’t know whether my friends would have met otherwise, but I do know that the pair are grateful for the introduction, and the connection happened because of our common love of books.
That same month, I corralled eight book club members to join me at an escape room. Though I hadn’t known any of these people just six months earlier, my new friends and I joined forces to successfully escape.
Pleased with the group’s growth and its success, I decided to host an event to celebrate the one-year anniversary of my book club. I brought Hawaiian-style leis, glow sticks and party hats to share with members. By then, the club had more than 500 members. Though only a small portion of the members have attended even a single event, five to 10 people — but sometimes as many as three dozen — show up every Saturday.
Almost a year after my first anniversary event, my Meetup continues growing. Today, close to 700 people have joined my group. With so many regulars attending weekly events, I made dozens of connections within the first year alone.
When I compare the reasons that I started my club to the reasons that many others seek to make social connections, it’s easy to see why my group has been successful. Frequently, people find themselves attending happy hours or other events that are not based on common interests because they don’t know how else to meet people.
I can relate. For years, I hosted parties at my home, hoping that I would make friends, but I had little to show for it. Years later, I became a host for Groupmuse, a musician-owned cooperative that brings classical concert performers — and fans of their music — to your home. While I enjoy classical music, I don’t feel the same passion for it as I do for books. And like my endeavour as a host of themed parties at my home, I didn’t make friends by organising concerts. I was disappointed by the results of my efforts as a concert host, especially because planning and publicising them took considerable effort.
Meanwhile, my work as host of a book club has helped me forge bonds with people who share the same passions as I do. If I were to attend your typical happy hour, I might not find myself interacting with people who love books as much as I do, or who are as eager to talk about this interest as I am.
Making friends and growing professional networks feels more important than ever, considering the loneliness crisis our country is facing.
According to a report released in 2023 by the U.S. Surgeon General, “social networks are getting smaller, and levels of social participation are declining.” The report also noted that the amount of time that individuals spent in-person with friends per day had decreased over the last two decades, as had the number of close friendships they reported.
Despite technology’s ability to help close the distance between people, it often does a poor job of actually bringing them together. Many people have more than 500 Facebook friends, but most of the time they only hear from them on their birthdays.
My experience as a Meetup coordinator has taught me that I shouldn’t judge how connected I am to the world around me based on the number of people I know, but by the quality of my friendships.
Making friendships takes time and effort, but I’ve discovered that it is possible to make real friends as an adult. One of the friends I made at my book club even toasted my wife and me at our wedding.
If you want to boost your friendship quotient, the most important thing is to focus on your passions. If you love fly fishing, start a fly fishing club — even if someone else in the area is already managing one — because when you start your fly fishing club, it’s your fly fishing club, and that means you can build it in a way that is meaningful to you. And if you are passionate about what you’re doing, you’ll be a gadfly for other people who share that passion, and they will join you in short order.
Jay Krasnow lives in Arlington, Virginia, where he is a public affairs professional and writer.
