legerdemain

Funny, both are run by Palantir alums.

I appreciate their range of crafting and manufacturing options, but my own interests are software and computing.

Re: "apathetic about tech in general" -- At the org where I'm a member, we hired a former Maker Nexus GM and had him on staff for about a year. His proposal for an income stream from kids' summer programs never quite landed. And apart from events organized by members, there was little initiative to bring in outside events, partnerships, hackathons, or new members through the door. Our slogan was some nonsense about being the heart of Silicon Valley, and the our space was basically 90% vacant most of the time.

Fascinating! I had no idea this existed or that the numbers worked out. What's a typical rate per hour for a modest space?

Yes, a lot. Does Maker Nexus run meetups other than their board game night?

The now-defunct maker space I used to visit inherited a former general manager from Maker Nexus, he was very... apathetic about tech in general.

I want to build more than I want to disassemble, but maybe I should check out the BBQ people's meetup.

You mean their Monday open mics, their monthly book club, and their... motorcycle enthusiasts meetup, if that's still going on? I've been at that open mic for years, most weeks. I've tried the book club, and I don't have enough interest in motorcycles.

Presumably for a social occasion at work, not to get more work done.

I've spent about $1000 on equipment and classes so far, and about a year of my time. My problem is that I still kind of suck, and I have no friends who also play pickleball. So at open play, people just beat me so they can finally get to play with their own friends. This is really demoralizing!

Where do you guys find space to play live music with a group in major cities? An apartment late at night, one floor up from where I live?

Do folks have social nerd meetup suggestions in the Bay Area? I'm pulling my hair out here in Mountain View. Aside from trying to run my own, with limited success, it's veeery slim pickings.

These tips are offered often and are presumably working for someone. As someone who has followed or tried to follow them for most of my life, there are lots of ways these tips might fail to serve:

  - Places you visit often might be fundamentally antisocial: e.g., a gym where everyone wears headphones.
  - Tickets to popular events (AC/DC) are astronomically expensive and sell out long in advance.
  - Inviting people who you don't know well to smaller, local, less spectacular events tends to bore people.
  - If someone is your first local prospective friend, inviting them and only them out constantly can stress an already tenuous relationship.
  - Introducing people to each other may reveal that they don't enjoy each other's company, so now they're both less interested in hanging out with your group.
  - Your prospective friends might have no local friends of their own, so they depend on you disproportionately for all of their socializing.
  - Your prospective friends might not drink alcohol or enjoy hanging out in bars, so hanging out at a bar no longer feels very inclusive.
  - Some people have a tight budget and don't deal well with the perceived obligation to spend money when out with friends.

To be honest, I've had a hard time managing these complications. It should be dead easy to apply advice, but it's not.

> I'm curious to hear if you can think of a better way to make friends irl with a decent chance of success.

Any environment where you can meaningfully help each other: a group for new parents, a study group at school, joining a non-profit advisor board.

> Did you not make one single lasting connection (friendship) from that?

I made a lot of activity partners: people I could talk to about that topic, and maybe some adjacent topics, but who didn't have a lot of interest in making me a part of their life outside that general topic. They wouldn't join invitations for dinner, they wouldn't hang out outside the club's context, and they would eventually flake out.

That's advice to meet activity partners, not friends. Think of your closest friends. Did you set out to meet them by looking for people with their exact interests? Maybe you did and you and your friends are part of a scene, but I'd bet most people did not.

On advice like yours, I started a niche club and ran it for 3 years. When people join your club, they're not there to meet you! They're joining to participate in the club. Now you're in the awkward position of responsibility as the club's host/organizer, with the additional distance between you and the other participants.

You mean like mittens, but with separate fingers? What would that accomplish exactly?

Notably:

  > here in Switzerland