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Journalism of Courage
On the face of it, Vipula V, 25, is a Gen Z achiever story that people cite examples of — self-made, self-starter, owner of an interior design firm in Bengaluru that’s creating smart work and living spaces, surrounded and wanted by people. Yet, she felt lost in a crowd until she joined a group of like-minded professionals. “People think singles are only looking for dating and hook-ups through apps or at pubs. But what matters is real friendship. As school and college friends drift apart because of their individual priorities, weekends become empty. Now, thanks to my meetup group, I have found people with similar interests and I am learning new things, growing as a person, looking forward to my Saturdays,” says Vipula, after a recent trek to Aadi Yogi in Chikkaballapur, Karnataka.
Vipula is among many young Indians who are pivoting their lives on meaningful relationships and lasting friendships over fickle and fragile love to overcome urban loneliness. They are choosing real world meetups to socialise and form their own communities of shared interests and ideas, far away from the superficial posing of a digital world.
“Our survey showed that 46 per cent professionals were living from Monday to Friday, and sleeping and vegetating over weekends. At these meetups, not only do you find people with similar interests, you develop different skill sets as well. These are ideal spaces for introverts, who may not socialise on their own,” says the 29-year-old IT engineer, who founded Oopar two years ago with his college friends Sagar Agarwal (sales) and Pragya Srivastava (product development), both 28.
In fact, this digital fatigue and aversion to casual dating has shown up in various data. Platforms like Tinder, Happn, Aisle and OkCupid have seen a significant decline in monthly active users between October 2022 and September 2023, according to data from Similarweb. Tinder, being the most popular, has seen a 20 per cent decrease in daily active users. This shift is palpable as most meetup groups have come up in the same period of time, be it Oopar, Let’s Socialise or Mitramesh.
Nobody has transited this change better than 30-year-old Rushabh Shah, who runs a family business in Bengaluru and has been at several meetup events. “Friends are comfortable with your harshest truths, your partner may not be. Romantic relationships become about performing to someone’s expectations and role-playing. Nanoships, or single interactions forgotten after the moment, are more disturbing, disorienting than liberating. But friendship has different spaces and keeps you both rooted and free. There is the 3 am friend, the lunch walla friend. They cushion you better than a fragile relationship,” he says.
Behind this boom lies the isolation of the Covid lockdowns and the work-from-home routines that followed. “That walled-in existence made us realise that people must experience people in all their fullness. And community relationships are stronger than individual relationships,” says Ravinder Singh, author and founder of Let’s Socialise, who began by hosting events at Malviya Nagar in Delhi, and now has a footprint in Mumbai, Bengaluru and even among NRI communities in London, Dubai and Toronto. Some of his members have now formed their own micro groups like those who go on themed holidays once a year. “They travelled to get a first-hand feel of Christmas in Kolkata, another did the offbeat circuit in Goa,” he adds.
Urban isolation has also been the corollary of migration, with young people moving to other cities for jobs and starting out life on their own. Cut off from the anchorage of home and people they have grown up with, they find themselves at the deep end, awkward, intimidated, reticent. But at meetup groups, they find many more like them and find familiarity in numbers. Mitramesh founder Vasu Vashishth, 27, developed his platform after a one-and-a-half year research in cities across India, talking to young people at working hostels. “Everybody told me that after school and college, there’s no platform for socialising and hanging out. Colleagues can never be your friends in a competitive place. Besides, you wouldn’t want to see them in your private time and space,” he says. He realised that doing one-off meetups, lasting two to three hours, negates the purpose of forging a friendly community. That’s why he developed a format of long-term membership, so that professionals could meet regularly and develop a stronger confidence and bonds. “I want to be the best friend they never knew they needed. I want to promote a culture of growing and prospering together,” says Vasu.
Mumbai girl Sohini Ganguly, 24, who is now a marketing professional in Noida, joined Mitramesh to find her feet in a new city, maintain a healthy work-life balance and carve her own identity without the reference points set by her family and society. “I was into speed-dating and was on every app once. I haven’t felt the need to swipe my dating app in six months. Catfishing and superficiality are passé. Now I value real conversations with real people without the complexity of a relationship. If I ever form one, I will be better prepared because I am maturing as a person,” she says. She loves karaoke nights and “jamming out” with her new circle of friends. She has also been able to build a network of lawyers, doctors, corporates and CAs, widening her catchment area for business.
What she loves about meetups is that the hosts never let anybody sit idle or feel left out but draw them in organically. While Oopar club does “ice-breaker” games with a mix of 20 questions and dumb charades, where participants have to act out the answers for others, Mitramesh has its volunteers blend in and make it easier for the newcomer to circulate. Sometimes groups are formed by a game of bingo, a game of chance where players match numbers assigned to them to numbers called out by a host. The players, who match numbers by row and house, form a winners’ group. “The idea is to be seen,” says Sourabh. That’s encouragement for people to talk about whatever they are comfortable with, allowing for deeper engagement and a crossflow of ideas.
Rushabh admits that meetups have helped him emerge from his cocoon and transform himself enough to surprise his family. He has met people from different walks of life and is now able to conduct deep conversations about AI and electronics with as much ease as politics. He remembers how the hosts gave newcomers prompts that they had to express through Lego blocks. “Then we were asked to make a comic strip about a superhero addressing a social cause. You do more things together than alone. And my opinions were heard instead of being drowned out,” he says.
But such meetup groups are not only for the singles out there. For Megha Ajay, 27, an architect in Hyderabad, it became a space to keep her marriage healthy. Originally from Mysore, she met her husband at work. “Suddenly, we were working in the same space, we had common friends, all architects, and I was losing my perspective. Which is why we needed to give each other some space. Childhood friends and relatives have their own lives and it becomes difficult to navigate that friendship when you are adulting,” says Megha, who has made new friends from diverse backgrounds and revived her passion for singing. She didn’t sing in public after college, now she is rehearsing to record and release a song online. “Our marriage has strengthened because we have found our individual places to thrive too,” she adds. Sohini, too, feels that women often weave their lives around their boyfriends or husbands, relatives and friends when they should be looking beyond that. “Friendships are here to stay, boys and girls will come and go,” she says.
Safety is another feature that draws in members. Meetup hosts are particular about this with the likes of Mitramesh even offering drop services for women members after late evening events. Singh, who has not had a complaint till now, feels ticket prices are an automatic filter. He argues that the Rs 3,000 entry fee and the effort and courage needed to show up for real at a venue are deterrents for anybody who is purely seeking physical intimacy while hiding behind a screen.
Oopar Club takes care to ensure nobody feels vulnerable or lost. Organisers profile entrants by checking their LinkedIn profiles, calling them up to sense their intentions and insisting on KYC protocols. Mitramesh even has volunteers monitoring unusual behaviour during group activities. Of course, there’s member feedback, too.
While the founders are passionate about re-connecting people in the real world, they have mastered the social entrepreneurship model. “Membership is subscription-based and for a fee of Rs 2,600 a year, you get access to our clubs and some events. Our premier events are ticketed and priced. Recently we got investors, too,” says Sourabh.
Vasu, a portfolio manager who set up Mitramesh in July last year and currently has a 25,000-member community, explains that meetups work on the YouTube model, where the subscription base draws in both sponsors and advertisers. “Thousands of non-permanent members also attend our events across cities. The venue pays us to host our events because it gives them access to a new market. Brands sponsor events and there is targetted advertising within the platform. Besides, we run a tight operation and overheads are low,” says Vasu, who is expanding his client base into Pune.
In this universe of friendships, is there no space for love? Although that’s not the intent, insist the three founders, if something organic develops between two people, they can pursue it privately. “So far only three couples have officialised their personal relationship but let’s say, life is bigger,” says Singh, who began writing romance novels after he lost his partner months before their wedding. He never lost faith in love but was hugely disappointed by the mismatch between the virtual and real on dating apps. “First own your authentic self. Without it, nothing works,” he adds.
The idea of Let’s Socialise germinated from the comments of Singh’s fans on a thread he had posted. Many of them expressed how tongue-tied they were and shy to even talk about themselves, leave alone expressing their ideas or opinions. He encouraged them to start writing to each other on that thread itself. Once the thread grew longer, he realised there was potential for an offline experiment.
However, he does propose a reversal of fortunes. “Maybe apps should now think of another business model where it gets people to meet first after thorough checks and then uses digital tools to take future interactions forward. It’s important to pick up the real vibe of a person, the way they smile, articulate their thoughts, the way they behave,” says Singh.
Although meetup organisers have largely targetted the 20 to 40 age group, they are deeply aware about age-related loneliness. Singh has been trying to reach out to the 50-plus group of empty nesters and retirees on Facebook as most of them are not on Instagram, which is where most meetup platforms advertise their events. He is considering reaching out to them through RWAs, who organise several events for the elderly. Others are thinking of new formats like the “workout challenge”, “reading better challenge” or the “eating healthy together challenge.” In fact, Singh is encouraging his young members to bring their parents and looking at more affordable venues for them. “Life has still a lot to give,” says Vipula, “Who knows, a stranger could become your buddy.”
