counterpoint:

back in the long-long ago when i was online dating, the biggest boon it provided was that it gave you a space where you knew that it was okay flirt and that your intentions would not be misunderstood. you never had to guess if it would be a creepy time/place to flirt. you never had to worry about your intentions being misunderstood as "just being friendly". if somebody was on this app/website, they were looking to flirt and if you approached them everybody was clear that you were flirting.

doing something similar with friendship could be great.

I guess this is less of an issue for male-to-male communication.

Theres plenty of awkwardness if you approach a bunch of guys that are all friends with each other. Can I join in this conversation, or is it a “closed” private clique?

In my experience, what sometimes work, is saying something, even just an "Oh? Really?". Although no deep connections emerged from that one, i've had a few good conversations with strange people going.

Interesting! All of my best friends came from going through the same experience together. Totally agree on that. But that experience was high school or college. What experience can adult men (25+) go through that is enough to build a lasting friendship?

That consistent, shared experience what I'm trying to build. But I can appreciate the feedback that it comes across as "auditioning" as that's not the point. The goal is to get people in the same place on a consistent basis. I also believe that consistently hanging out with people who are generally interesting / agreeable is a lot more important than matching humor or hobbies.

How would you position this with that goal in mind, especially considering that some filtering needs to take place since many people won't necessarily click like you say. I'm not going to find someone whose humor matches mine by dumb luck.

I host a meetup for telecommuters for the same reasons you're starting this up.

Given it's Meetup, there's no "auditioning". The hardest part of that is that the demographic is so enormously wide wrt age, gender, cultural and educational background, profession... it's tough for real connections to grow for people just expecting to drop in just once. But come/host consistently, and eventually clumps of people do start to gel. So you're right, consistency is key.

Also - the more simple we keep it, happy hour, dinner, the more people seem to enjoy it. Honestly, it's just an excuse to leave the house and booze at this point.

I'm thinking "auditioning" may not be a bad thing if you want to avoid some of the dragnet effects of just being open like Meetup. Explicitly going for the yuppie crowd is just a hard thing to advertise on an open platform. ie. nobody's going to show up at the "26 to 38 creatives and dev adjacent telecommuters that live in the cool neighborhood, doctors allowed if they leave their attitudes at home"-Meetup, although that was I was originally hoping for. But on closed platform you'll be able to curate better.

Good luck dude!

== What experience can adult men (25+) go through that is enough to build a lasting friendship?==

Maybe fatherhood. I’ve had some of that experience with friends I’ve made through my kid’s preschool.

This week I read an article about a local club for new fathers in Chicago. Kinda of a similar concept, friendship through shared experience.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-culture/2025/05/2...

I think you are right - I am a total fucking weirdo, irredeemably strange, but as soon as I had children suddenly I could talk to other dads. Unfortunately, men cannot yet reproduce clonally.

I would second the "filtering" really rubs me the wrong way. You just need to setup the events and friendships will continue outside of them, that's how if works. You can't know who will hit it off. The key is just creating opportunities. Half the people don't really know if they will be into something or not anyway.

Very fair point, thanks.

Absolutely - it read to me like a grown up fraternity. Rush our social event and we’ll call you if you’re cool enough (or similar enough to us) to join the club and attend our invite-only poker night.

Maybe I just have a weird outcast complex, but I stay away from clubs that make you get “sponsorship” by shmoozing with existing members first (country clubs, yacht clubs). That really triggers some repulsion in me for some reason.

Instead, I’ve found a few friends from shared experiences and hobbies like my local cycling club, book club, and every now and again, car meets. (Even, weirdly enough, parents of people I grew up with and connected with later on in life.)

Even when I play golf, I do it at a public club rather than a private one.

Gym, BJJ, pick up soccer, tabletop game clubs, RPG events, book clubs. There’s a billion options out there.

BJJ is really amazing for this. Trust is built into the activity, it draws a wide range of people, and is practiced all over the world at this point. I moved countries, found a BJJ gym, and instantly met some great people to hang out with.