social clubs

[gusl]

I think a serious social problem for recently-arrived adults in large cities is making new friends.

One solution would be simply to have clubs in which people do things together. One any given evening, people from each club would be in 3 or 4 places. If you go to any of these places, it's likely that you will run into the same people. This way, you get a large circle of acquaintances, just like you would in a small town (my college experience). If you go somewhere else, it's as if you "went out of town for a night".

While some clubs could be a simple "people club", others could help you filter the kinds of people by age, music taste, belief-system, or (of course) favorite type of activity.

Comments

[trufflesniffer.livejournal.com]

Cities do tend to comprise of lots of communities living 'on top' of each other, rather than a coherent social entity in their own right. Though being a member of 'city x' is an aspect of the identity of most members of most communities, one does not become member of any particular community simply by virtue of living in a city.

The usual ways of finding a community to become a member of within a city are:
1) to know someone within the city who's already a member of a community, and willing to invite one to also be a member of the community
2a) to find a community one wishes to be a member of through a pre-identified 'portal' (such as, going to a particular bar known to attract, for example, people with similar musical interests, from which it's sometimes correct to infer other sufficient similarities of interest such that one may have identified a community - e.g. goths)
2b) to identify through overt signalling that an individual comes from a community one wishes to gain membership of, and with whom one had sufficient prerequisite similarities such that one has a possibility of becoming a member of said community (many communities are drawn along ethnic or linguistic boundaries, which form 'hard' barriers to entry). This, I think, is one reason one often finds people more extravagently dressed in cities than in less densely populated areas - because they need to make their social 'signal' of communal identity clear against the 'noise' of the crowd. THe likelihood of encountering someone randomly, within a small town, who shared similar interests (often predicated simply on shared experience and needs) is much greater than in a city, and so stronger (usually visual) clues are needed to guide one to someone capable of being a member of the same community.

It's interesting that the rate of homosexuals in cities tend to be much higher than in non-cities, because cities tend to draw people with similar wants and needs - which aren't 'normal' wants and needs - together, and make it easier for them to identify each other.


I think what you're recommending already takes place, only it's sometimes something of a hit-and-miss affair. THe need to find a community to be a member of is sometimes so strong in cities that it seems to lead to community members becoming caricatures of themselves, as their group identity subsumes individual identity. For those who aren't willing to exaggerate their differences from one community and commonality with another, living in a city can be a lonely and unforgiving experience.

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

In the US, meetin.org tends to be useful for that type of thing. There are also all sorts of smaller communities going on. Denver was especially good at this type of thing. There were many different niche communities, and there was the hometown feel of getting to know all the people within a particular community, be it the local poets, musicians, comedians, etc.