Manipulating The Business of Getting Strangers to Meet One Another
Being the not busy person that he is, the author has recently been increasingly using his time off after work and over weekends to show up at various meet-up events across Taipei, trying his best to make acquaintances with the rather small foreigner community here in the city as well as the well-heeled and keen, international-minded, and often enthusiastic English-learning local Taiwanese crowd. In this process, the author has come across an interesting segment of a small-business owners. They have no office, little revenue, but plenty of friends they can leverage on to gain revenues through scale.
These businessmen are, you probably guessed it, the organizers of these meetup events. Hyperactive on various Facebook groups filled to the brim with lonely foreigners seeking to enlarge their social circle in a strange foreign city, they somehow manage to tap into the emotional void of a niche segment and transform it into an excited expectation that going to a specific bar at a specific time of the week will fundamentally change their social fortunes in Taiwan. Heck, they think, if them Americans and Europeans are so good at talking about random people in their own country, why can't the same culture be replicated here?
Of course, this is much easier said than done. The author himself knows personally of a few foreigners who attempted to initiate their own meetup events in a bid to make some extra cash on the side. Mostly they happened to fail miserably, attracting a few friends, a bunch of regrettable opportunists, and truly awkward situation that they as organizers can do little about. That is probably why many of the successful, long-lasting meetups that the author had the fortune to attend maintain an obvious cloak of "theme party" that attendants can relate to. The most obvious of these happen to be "language exchange" for practicing foreign languages.
That is not to say that all parties termed "language exchange" will be successful, however. Yes, it is true that the vast majority of participants in these events go to the events assuming that no one is really there to study language. Indeed, conversations always manage to degenerate into Chinese or English, depending on whichever happens to be more fluent language of the particular group of conversing people. But this has not discouraged some organizers to come up with some truly creative and outlandish attempts to maintain the theme, usually involving little activities that get all participants' attention for even a split second.
The author was unfortunately part of such an incident this past Friday night in a little known private bar/clubhouse. Heading over by himself after a friend who told him about the event cancelled at the last minute, the author befriended some attendees and spent nearly have the time cringing at the "open mic" attempts made by some of the participants. With half-baked music and even PowerPoint presentations strenuously presented while the supposed "audience" fixated their eyes on their respective 7-inch smartphone screens, the event turned out to be one of the most far-fetched the author participated in Taipei.
Well, the organizer of the event certainly did not bother to relate to the audience on this front. Diligently clapping and cheering on every single brave soul who took to the stage, the dude had no qualms about creating a semblance of excellence in the open mic lineup, and thus indirectly, the wisdom of hosting such an event. In no less a few times, he went around the room, telling everyone including the author his gratitude for attendance as well as his determination to keep the event going. The enthusiasm on his own part, he probably felt, would drive his event to new heights among the myriads going on in the city.
Seeing such desperation (?) on the part of the organizer does make one think exactly what meeting strangers and building budding friendships from briefest of brief conversations really entails. For many, like the author, with limited number of coworkers and practically no friends in a new place of residence, such efforts to organize meetups, even for ultimately financial profit purposes, are highly appreciated. This is even more so considering the social distance typical Asians (especially females) tend to throw up between themselves and people who they come to know for the first time.
At the end, though, some meetups are fundamentally bound to become polite formalities, where vain attempts to dissuade "hey there" from degenerating into spirals of complete awkwardness will outweigh genuine formation of lasting friendships. But this does not give reasons for the participants, as well as the organizers themselves, from at least trying to set up the interactive platform with a meaningful intention in mind. After all, without actually going through with the execution, one would never know what they outcome will be. In spite of the organizers' obvious financial self-interest, the author does applaud their efforts, and will continue to grace his presence in their events.
These businessmen are, you probably guessed it, the organizers of these meetup events. Hyperactive on various Facebook groups filled to the brim with lonely foreigners seeking to enlarge their social circle in a strange foreign city, they somehow manage to tap into the emotional void of a niche segment and transform it into an excited expectation that going to a specific bar at a specific time of the week will fundamentally change their social fortunes in Taiwan. Heck, they think, if them Americans and Europeans are so good at talking about random people in their own country, why can't the same culture be replicated here?
Of course, this is much easier said than done. The author himself knows personally of a few foreigners who attempted to initiate their own meetup events in a bid to make some extra cash on the side. Mostly they happened to fail miserably, attracting a few friends, a bunch of regrettable opportunists, and truly awkward situation that they as organizers can do little about. That is probably why many of the successful, long-lasting meetups that the author had the fortune to attend maintain an obvious cloak of "theme party" that attendants can relate to. The most obvious of these happen to be "language exchange" for practicing foreign languages.
That is not to say that all parties termed "language exchange" will be successful, however. Yes, it is true that the vast majority of participants in these events go to the events assuming that no one is really there to study language. Indeed, conversations always manage to degenerate into Chinese or English, depending on whichever happens to be more fluent language of the particular group of conversing people. But this has not discouraged some organizers to come up with some truly creative and outlandish attempts to maintain the theme, usually involving little activities that get all participants' attention for even a split second.
The author was unfortunately part of such an incident this past Friday night in a little known private bar/clubhouse. Heading over by himself after a friend who told him about the event cancelled at the last minute, the author befriended some attendees and spent nearly have the time cringing at the "open mic" attempts made by some of the participants. With half-baked music and even PowerPoint presentations strenuously presented while the supposed "audience" fixated their eyes on their respective 7-inch smartphone screens, the event turned out to be one of the most far-fetched the author participated in Taipei.
Well, the organizer of the event certainly did not bother to relate to the audience on this front. Diligently clapping and cheering on every single brave soul who took to the stage, the dude had no qualms about creating a semblance of excellence in the open mic lineup, and thus indirectly, the wisdom of hosting such an event. In no less a few times, he went around the room, telling everyone including the author his gratitude for attendance as well as his determination to keep the event going. The enthusiasm on his own part, he probably felt, would drive his event to new heights among the myriads going on in the city.
Seeing such desperation (?) on the part of the organizer does make one think exactly what meeting strangers and building budding friendships from briefest of brief conversations really entails. For many, like the author, with limited number of coworkers and practically no friends in a new place of residence, such efforts to organize meetups, even for ultimately financial profit purposes, are highly appreciated. This is even more so considering the social distance typical Asians (especially females) tend to throw up between themselves and people who they come to know for the first time.
At the end, though, some meetups are fundamentally bound to become polite formalities, where vain attempts to dissuade "hey there" from degenerating into spirals of complete awkwardness will outweigh genuine formation of lasting friendships. But this does not give reasons for the participants, as well as the organizers themselves, from at least trying to set up the interactive platform with a meaningful intention in mind. After all, without actually going through with the execution, one would never know what they outcome will be. In spite of the organizers' obvious financial self-interest, the author does applaud their efforts, and will continue to grace his presence in their events.
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