I went out last night to attend a meet up group happy hour for east bay folks. I had been saying to myself for a while now that I need to get to know Oakland myself, without the help of dates. It may offer a more sustaining experience. Meetup.com has been good to me in the past so I jumped in and signed up for as many things as possible. I finally forced myself to go last night. As I was walking up to the bar I realized that I had made it that far but now I was going to have to introduce myself to groups of people as a complete loner. That really is not that easy to do. “Hi my name is Sarah I am new here..” and just smile and laugh and be aloof but engaging. Seems simple right?
My first table was a group of 3 woman – all in their late 30’s. I asked them if they are also there for the meet up – yes but no, but yes. They also were there for a meet up event but not the same one. They were friendly but not.. almost put off by my friendliness. After a few minutes of conversation they disbanded to head home. I made my way over to what looked like a younger group of people and just introduced myself. Turns out there weren’t related to the meet up at all but just work colleagues there for an afterwork drink. They were also wierded out but friendly but were about to leave to and welcomed me to Oaktown. I finally identified the leader for the meetup I had signed up for in the corner talking with a table of 8 people. I walked up and introduced myself and received a few very enthusiastic hellos. I started chatting with them and after about 10 mins one of the ladies turns to me and says “you know there are groups for people more your age”… I realized she was saying I was too young to be hanging out with late 30/ early 40 year olds. ….. And all of a sudden I wanted to go home.
I finished my beer said goodbye to the new faces I had met and then started the walk back to my car. It was a really beautiful evening and as I walked by the Fox theatre the lines of people waiting to get into the show were slowly shuffling by. I spied a taco shop and in a split second decision popped to the other side of the street. I greeted the gal behind the counter with a probably over enthusiastic “hello” as my beer I had just finished had settled inside me. She gave this big yawn at the same moment she went to reply and embarrassed tried to recover with a hello. I smiled, ordered and started to lament lightly to her my awkward evening of the weird unfriendly meetup group. She asked me how long I had been in Oakland and then said to not leave until she can come chat with me. As I ate my tacos she popped by, got my info and said “I’m going to introduce you to some friends”. So sweet! As I walked out of the place with a happy little bounce she came out the side door saying she was off of work and headed home. Our cars were in the same direction so we chatted about Oaktown and this and that as we walked. I asked her if she had been to the starline social club and she said she knew the owner. It was just around the corner so we popped in and grabbed a booth. (NEW FAVORITE PLACE BTW.) Drinks, chats laughs and a few hours later we walked out of there exchanging numbers. Her name? Sarah.

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