[intro-b]

i feel like "traditional" events for casually connecting and meeting with others have become somehow underrated — things like attending trivia events at a local pub, pick-up sports leagues, book signings, meetup groups, local volunteering orgs, and stuff like that all exist and, post-lockdown in many cities, seem even livelier and more interesting than before, with many people just going out and talking to others with no ulterior motives or expectations of anything else but meeting interesting people

once you're at a physical event, you already have one thing in common with everyone there, which is your presence at the event, and it's really easy to strike up a conversation about something topical and then get to know someone better—the issue with a lot of these apps is that the initial conversation can be awkward or fizzle out quickly if both sides aren't completely engaged, which is often the case anyway