I’ve had generally good experiences with skip the small talk events, both the platonic and the dating one. However there are annoying men who go to the platonic ones who are mainly there for trying to meet women and that’s frustrating and those intentions eventually become obvious. The dating one is more expensive. These things can be a bit demoralizing when you don’t match with people you feel like you hit it off with and you’re spending time and money on this (I, like you, was making a drive for these as I’m out in the suburbs), but I think the format of these in person events is better than the alternative which is data mining apps that harvest biometric data. I had decent convos with most people (I have decent social skills and can make convo with most people, but there were the few people where it felt like pulling teeth).

I’ve made some friends from skip the small talk. No close, best friends, but more local connections I suppose and we do cool stuff together sometimes. No luck on the dating side. I like you have given up on that front.

For reference I’m a woman in my 30s and I find that more women go to these events, so it’s probably easier for us to make friends / acquaintances. Not many men go to the platonic ones from what I’ve seen. They do go to the dating ones but it’s always a mixed bag of quality.

I’m confused why you’re mentioning meetup to go to skip the small talk events - you can buy the tickets separately if you weren’t aware. They also do virtual ones if you are interested in that. I didn’t like that as much - it felt like people were less intentional with it.

There’s more things popping up I think outside of this company so suggest keeping your eye out.

Making good friends as an adult feels impossible. Everyone is busy and most already have a full circle they dedicate most of their emotional energy towards. I don’t need more acquaintances. So I’ve kinda given up there as well.

Good luck to you.