

Making Friends Over 30 with Grubwithus - eddylu
http://blog.grubwithus.com/post/27339212070/making-friends-over-30-with-grubwithus

======
cin_
Shared suffering is a guaranteed way to make friends.

When you are placed under high amounts of stress and you are with someone else
an instant bond is forged.

Physical stress is the most obvious but mental or emotional stress are just as
affective. If you want to make friends do something you hate or are horrible
at.

The NYT article sited talked about 'getting over that hump' in a relationship.
Meeting people seemed like the easy part, but forming a friendship was the
problem.

Ask them if they are afraid of something or cringe at the thought of doing
something then organise the effort.

Know your limits and cooperate against them. When failure is obvious everyone
is free to have fun and avoid any anxiety to impress or succeed.

Example: I went indoor rock climbing with a friend. It was his second time,
and my first since I was ten. We got to the gym, did a few easy tracks and
then I suggested we go at the most difficult track on the wall. We made it
about ten feet up the wall then fell off. Our hands were simply too weak.

We knew it was beyond us, but this was the first time all day that we laughed
so for the rest of the day we just kept trying the same track.

We breaked for lunch and then argued whether we were too spent to go back for
round two. We decided to hell with the fatigue we have to beat that track. We
went back and, again, fell every time we tried.

The next day I saw him walking down the street so we got some coffee and
laughed about how the both of us needed to find someone else to open doors and
jars of peanut butter because our hands were so exhausted our grips had become
useless.

There was very little `proper` socialising. Impossible to talk about anything
except grip suggestions when one guys on the ground and the other is on the
wall, but we got to know each other better, I think, than if we had talked
about work or whatever.

Dinner is nice, but you want something you can look back on and say, 'Haha, do
you remember when... that shit was ridiculous.'

------
Zarathust
I have no idea what your website does, then when I click to find out more, you
want me to register.

------
picardo
I've gone to a few GrubWithUs events and found them terriby shallow, boring
and exhausting. Throwing together a bunch of strangers at random and hoping
that something sticks is a very bad strategy for making friends.

I'd rather go to a Meetup where at least I can have a chance to learn
something with people who care about something other than food. Being stuck at
a table with the same haphazard group of people for hours? No thanks.

------
AndrewWarner
I did a grubwithus dinner last week and got to know a guy who's going to work
out of my office on Wed and then go rowing with me after work. When I read
that article's headline, I instantly thought of Grubwithus.

------
polyfractal
Tangentially related, I think this is an excellent example of capitalizing on
"Startup Micro Opportunities" [1]

The original article about friends resonated strongly with HN, and GrubWithUs
is a natural solution to the problems discussed in the article and thread.
Writing an article like this is a great way to capitalize on that momentum.

Great job GrubWithUs! =)

[1] [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/10/startup-micro-
op...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/10/startup-micro-
opportunities.html)

------
alphang
Interesting idea, however I think it feels a bit too deliberate for my tastes.
Based on the groups it can seem more like a networking tool.

Beyond a startup, I would also recommend volunteering, doing sports, taking a
class, or if you're spiritually-inclined, going to church, in order to make
new friendships. Those tend to be more regular, and you're not so focused on
the conversation itself.

------
magoon
Grubwithus.com looks enticing, but when I looked for more information on how
it works, I'm encouraged to sign up. This is a disappointing trend; I am
interested to learn more, but to do so I must commit -- so unfortunately I'm a
bounce.

Edit: Reading through more of these comments, I'm not alone.

------
silverlake
I tried GrubWithUs out of curiosity last year. They have something that looks
like a social network to promote keeping in touch with people, but I didn't
notice people making us of it effectively. Perhaps if it was plugged into
Facebook in some way it might help people move at least to "acquaintance"
stage.

------
Tichy
How likely is it to turn random strangers into friends? Seems to me a better
strategy would be to do things where meeting people would already signal a
common interest. Sure, we all like to eat, but that is usually not enough to
form a life-lasting bond.

That said, personally I am always curious about other people, and meeting
people you wouldn't meet otherwise sounds like fun - for a while.

~~~
guynamedloren
> _How likely is it to turn random strangers into friends? Seems to me a
> better strategy would be to do things where meeting people would already
> signal a common interest._

You're absolutely correct. That's why Grubwithus has themed meals and local
interest groups (that regularly host meals). The idea of bringing people
together over a shared interest has been incredibly well received, and
generally results in higher quality conversation etc.

------
porter
Just join a crossfit gym. Get fit and meet dozens or hundreds of locals in a
non-forced environment.

------
hollerith
In the discussion on yesterday's NY Times story, someone said that your
coworkers are not an ideal place to find friends because of the inevitability
of situations in which you have to compete with your coworkers for bonuses,
the best assignments and promotions.

Well, a person is not in competition with his or her cofounders. Would any who
have or have had cofounders like to comment on how good having cofounders is
at creating lasting friendships?

~~~
WalterSear
If you are competing with your coworkers, rather than working together as a
team, to make sure there are opportunities for all, you don't need friends:
you need a new job.

------
marknutter
Does anyone else get irritated by product blogs that don't have a link back to
the product anywhere?

------
svachalek
How exactly are they promoting a dinner arranged through their site as
"unplanned"?

------
mattangriffel
I've got to upvote this one on its timeliness and relevance alone. Startups,
take note.

~~~
okamiueru
Timeliness and relevance? Personally I find it to be neither.

It is my impression that they are a bit disingenuous, and actively using HN
for promotion, playing the 'we're a startup' card as hard as they can. It
might have been the "groupon is evil" post they made that gave me the sour
taste, which had very few interesting points, and if nothing else, was just
link baiting.

This was the post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166021>

------
thaumaturgy
Shucks ... doesn't seem to be a way to see if there's any activity in my area
without having to sign up first. I've seen grubwithus come up occasionally but
never really checked them out.

Another good way to socialize after college is through meetup; meetup's got a
pretty big network now, and there will be more clubs and groups in most areas
than most people could reasonably hope to be active in. I just picked up a
bunch of new climbing buddies out of Sacto that way and got back on the rock
in Tahoe for the first time in years.

~~~
ben1040
>Shucks ... doesn't seem to be a way to see if there's any activity in my area
without having to sign up first.

Yep. I signed up and after going through the signup workflow, I then found out
there was nothing really going on in my neck of the woods.

And then I discovered that to delete my account (which I shouldn't have had to
create in the first place) I had to email them. Maybe there was a self-service
account deletion option that I couldn't see, but I didn't want to spend any
more time hunting for it.

~~~
sirrealle
I always sign up for things like this with my spam account / info. If I really
like the service, I just create a new account with real info if there's no
easy way to delete the old account.

------
moron
I actually did register on Grubwithus after seeing it recommended in the
original thread.

It appears there is an event in my town on Thursday, and it shows a few people
who will be attending. To reserve a seat, I have to pay $22. Where is the
event? It doesn't say, except that the location is "near Portland" and will be
revealed "soon". What will we be eating? It doesn't say.

I dunno about you guys but that much info is not exactly enough for me to
plunk down $22. "Near Portland" is especially ominous, that could be anywhere
in a 50 mile radius.

Who knows, maybe I am using it wrong.

~~~
mnicole
Ditto. Was expecting it to tell me about the dinners before the groups in my
area. I assumed (because of the interests I put in) that the Young
Professionals Group was hosting a dinner so I "joined" it. Then when I was on
my profile, I realized that I'd only "joined" the Young Professionals _group_
not their dinner. I had to go back to the homepage to see the to-be-determined
PDX dinner date was actually being hosted by the Portland Foodies, which I am
not interested in attending.

~~~
netcorps
I just signed up as i thought it was interesting, only to find out there is no
action in Berlin, Germany. Not really surprised by that.

So i thought, ok, let's set up a group and a diner in a nice restaurant... So
why the hell am i supposed to provide my credit card data to potentially pay
$22 (??) for a meetup in a UNKNOWN, not freely choosable restaurant in Berlin?

It just tells me "yo, we will set up a nice partner restaurant for you"...

So i have to pay upfront (if enough people signup) for a meetup in a
restaurant which i cannot choose, somewhere in Berlin, not knowing if
grubwithus will actually be able to book a table in a decent restaurant (how
would they know my taste....). It's also entirely unclear how much of the
money goes to grubwithus, which should be clearly explained somewhere without
me having to look it up in the terms and conditions or wherever it might be
hidden.

I'm not fast in saying "This concept will fail", but I am pretty sure this
model is fundamentally flawed and will fail...

I misinterpreted the platform as a nice way of setting up a diner with friends
+ some strangers in a restaurant of my choice (where i know the quality is
good), but grubwithus doesn't allow me to do that.

It's also really weird that i cannot comment in my recently created group,
because the system tells me to "Slow down there partner!".

------
ricardobeat
The blog is missing a link to <http://grubwithus.com> in the header or
sidebar.

~~~
guynamedloren
Funny enough, I work at Grubwithus I just griped about this recently (for
startup blogs in general):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4245090>

Thanks for pointing this out. I'll pass the word along to the blog
maintainers.

~~~
LeBleu
It would be nice if you could tell if there is any local activity _before_
signing up. I'm not giving a random web site my Facebook or email when most
likely no one else local is signed up anyway.

------
starpilot
There's also Grouper <http://joingrouper.com>, which pairs three men with
three women. It only serves NYC at the moment though.

~~~
untog
Although it doesn't state as such, everyone I know that has used Grouper has
done it in a group dating context rather than a "making friends" one.

~~~
starpilot
I did not know that. Thanks for the clarification.

------
bkyan
Hey guys, slight problem on the interest selection screen:

[http://shadowcatcher.mindcast.com/clips/13424618268crwf9x98p...](http://shadowcatcher.mindcast.com/clips/13424618268crwf9x98p.png)

I'm using Chrome (20.0.1132.57 m) on WinXP Home.

~~~
daishin
Thanks for the note -- we will deploy the fix for this issue tonight. Sorry
for the inconvenience.

~~~
pmarsh
Not sure why but after entering in my zipcode it started me at NYC (I'm in NJ
so I expected that) but then other pages like the interests page would start
showing Chicago based information.

~~~
elliottcarlson
Same experience - I am in NYC, it started me off in Kips Bay - every time I
explicitly change my locality it changes it back to Kips Bay when I navigate
to a new page. Additionally, and this could be user error, but it added me to
various groups I have no interest in and I had to hunt down how to leave those
groups.

------
wkdown
Nice try, GrubWithUs

~~~
brlewis
When people start talking about a problem your startup is designed to address,
you'd be doing a disservice not to tell people about it or remind them of it.

~~~
nhangen
But this isn't an answer, it's a promotion.

------
jaysonelliot
I don't want to criticize the post as promotional, because it's the company
blog, and it's their job to be talking about themselves. At the same time, I
don't think it's a real answer to the NY Times article. You're not going to
make friends over one dinner.

I've gone to a couple GrubWithUs dinners, and they were great. I met
interesting people, had interesting conversations, and even made some new
acquaintances.

I didn't "make friends," though. That's a much different thing, and comes from
a different place. The original NY Times article made great points about our
changing nature as we mature getting in the way of deep friendships. That's
all true, but there are also logistical practicalities.

The great friends you make in school or college are people that you saw every
day, or at least every week, in class and around campus. You shared groups and
activities, whether it was a sport, a band, drama club, your D&D group,
whatever. Friendship takes repeated exposure in mundane situations.

I've had some great, intense experiences with acquaintances as an adult. A few
years ago, I took a cross-country road trip with a guy that I met through a
mutual friend. I was writing an article about the Smart Car, and he was my
photographer. We drove 4,000 miles over 12 days, and had a great time. We both
live in New York, and I even run into him at the occasional show. Without a
regular, everyday reason to hang out, though, we just faded into
acquaintances.

For people who want to have real friendships as adults, maybe what we need is
some kind of structure in our lives that more closely resembles what people
have earlier in life. For myself, I still have a D&D group, and while I don't
want to hang out with everyone all the time, I have made some real and lasting
friendships in the group. I'm sure most people could think of some way to find
structure and camaraderie on a regular basis. I don't think GrubWithUs really
does that, though.

~~~
simonsarris
> You're not going to make friends over one dinner. ... Friendship takes
> repeated exposure in mundane situations.

I agree... so why not host multiple dinners? On your own?

I started hosting my own dinners[1] at my house every Wednesday and it's been
_fantastic._ Really super great. I can't advocate it enough, especially for
someone introverted like myself who may not want to go out of his way to
interact with new people every day.

The people that come to the dinners are people I meet through my roommates, or
old friends, or workers at the local cafe (original and ongoing source of
roommates too), or their friends. Sometimes we invite acquaintances on an off
chance. Neighbors are fair game too. GrubWithUs would just be another "source"
of potentially great people. After all if they don't click, you don't have to
invite them next week.

Another similar event I started was a recurring beer tasting event with the
owner of the cafe. This is a completely different crowd, fairly varied in age,
but still small enough to be intimate and regular enough to make good
acquaintances and bring people together.

There have got to be a lot of ways to introduce regularity into your life with
acquaintances. Hell, even going to the same cafe regularly can help with that.

GrubWithUs may not be good for long term friends, but it does provide a
sampling of people that you can in turn invite to your _own_ regular dinners.
It's a launch-pad for finding people to invite to your own regular events.

[1] Some photos: <http://imgur.com/a/X2Zoj>

~~~
chewxy
Wow. You had just what I had in mind. I created Strangers for Dinner to that
extent. We've had about 4 dinner parties so far and they were pretty amazing.

The amount of conversation you get with strangers, learning more about
different people.

Hope I don't sound too self-promotional, but you can check out Strangers for
Dinner: <http://strangersfordinner.com>

~~~
yequalsx
Nice website. Would love to check it out but I don't use Facebook. I really
don't understand why websites don't have alternative means of creating an
account.

It's worth considering that people who are more likely to use such a site
might be more introverted than the average person and perhaps less likely to
have a Facebook account.

~~~
chewxy
We actually target INTJ and INTP people for Strangers for Dinner. And yes,
we're looking to move away from Facebook, but right now, Facebook has a wealth
of information about a user.

Our system can make heuristic guesses (and validate that you're a real person)
about your interests by using Facebook, so it's gonna be difficult to replace
for the time being.

Sorry about your non-experience with SfD

~~~
benmccann
Why target INTJ and INTP? Do you do anything on the site to verify the
personality type?

I thought it was a bit weird you used Pyongyang as the default. If you had
picked any other foreign city I would have assumed it was a foreign website
and given up then. Probably better to leave blank (I had to delete Pyongyang,
so this would have saved me typing) or fill in using IP geolocation.

~~~
chewxy
no we don't verify personality types. That'd be creepy. I started SfD for a
personal reason (in fact I posted it here at HN first saying I didn't have
friends). People like me would be my target audience, I decided. Them
extroverts have enough friends already.

I used Pyongyang as a form of negging. The idea was to use repugnance to force
people to change the form. There is a IP geolocation version coming out really
soon (as well as other features)

