This Is How People 'Meet' Nowadays

I went to a Meetup event Saturday. I blogged about Meetup a few months ago, but this time I went with a friend who is a member of the Women of Color Meetup group. One of the members hosted a fish fry at her house. I grew up in the South, where fish frys are common, but I haven't been to one in years. And it was just as I remembered—people love fish right out of the grease. But most of the people here weren't from the South.

Just serve me mine with two pieces of bread. No sauces needed.

I'm not a member of any Meetup groups and this is only the second such event I've gone to, but I can tell you why people join. As is obvious by the name of the social networking site, it's a great and easy way to meet people.

At one point during the fish fry, the organizer led an introduction in which she asked everyone to stand up, say their name, where they're from, what they do for a living, and why they decided to join Women of Color. One of the things that occurred to me was that the majority of the women had lived in Charlotte less than a year, coming from places like Detroit, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Illinois, and Wisconsin. So it shows you that people are relying on sites like Meetup to connect with people when they move to a new city. Women of Color has more than 450 members, and it was founded just last September, which is when its organizer moved to Charlotte.

Hi, I'm Jarvis. And I'm a Leo.

I'm of the college generation, where most of us were expected to go to college. This has created an environment in which as adults we generally don't live in our hometowns. Instead, we live in cities where we've moved to for jobs after college. That's one of the biggest differences between my generation and my parents'. For their generation, they usually settle down either in their hometown or the hometown of their spouse.

When the women were introducing themselves, most said they joined this Meetup group because they moved here not knowing anybody and wanted a way to meet and network. Supporting my hypothesis that only one out of every ten people I meet is a Charlotte native, only one woman introduced herself as being from Charlotte. She said she joined Meetup because all of her friends moved away.