As soon as I saw the title of the event and read its description I was struck by a moment of wistful sadness: I was no longer a thirtysomething. Plus, the organiser had clearly stated that age was important to the success of the group. Nevertheless, I registered anyway, stating that I was an optimistic thirty nine.
The aim of the group was to meet people who didn’t want to go on holiday on their own. I liked that the group was specifically for single people; there’s nothing more irritating than having to endure smug loved-up couples who inadvertently help you to think about your own romantic ineptitude.
I should confess that I’m pretty rubbish at taking holidays. If I travel somewhere on my own I feel like an idiot: I always end up retreating to the hotel, raiding the mini bar and marvelling at new and fascinating commercials on the television; I would much rather travel with a companion: your experiences are never the same as those experienced by your companion. Not only do you have company, but you can also have your thoughts and views challenged by your fellow traveller.
My phone told me to head towards London Bridge. I walked past one of London’s iconic buildings that is colloquially known as the ‘walkie-talkie’. I recognised a barber’s shop that had once featured on a television news story. The unique concave glass structure of the walkie-talkie used to focus sunlight like a giant magnifying glass, melting paint on shop hoardings and bending car wing mirrors. To solve the problem the architects had erected a huge ‘sun screen’. The walkie-talkie was a sky scraper that wore shades.
A walk along a side street led me to a city pub called The Crutched Friar. My phone said that there were around five people in the group, and I was worried about whether I would be able to find them. I asked myself a few idle questions: why were there so few people? Was this a new group, or was this a group that was on the wane?
I did a circuit of the pub, which was filled with city professionals in suits having a drink before their journey home. I looked at any group that seemed to be huddled around their mobile phones. Were they checking the Meetup app to see who else was coming? I went to the back of the pub, which was a smoking area, but couldn’t see anyone. I returned inside and loitered around a group of people who looked to be in their thirties.
I’ve learnt that searching for eye contact is a great way to find a group; if you’re looking for them, then there should be a very good chance that they’re looking for you too. If there are moments of prolonged eye contact with a stranger, then there’s a good chance that they might be a Meetup person, or the stranger might think that you are trying to pick them up.
I found the group at the front of the pub. I asked if everyone was good for drinks, went to the bar and ordered a pint and got chatting to people the moment I returned. Sue was our host for the night: she was bubbly and outgoing, and, unlike me, in her early thirties. I sat between Luca, who turned out to be a software developer who lived in North London, and Joyce who worked in local government.
Naturally, much of the discussion was about travel. Myself and Joyce wanted to go to New York. Sue mentioned Spain, and Luca, who was from Italy, said that he really liked visiting Prague.
‘Is everyone happy to go onto another place?’ asked Sue, after about half an hour of drinking. ‘I know somewhere to go. I can get a bucket of beer and a bottle of wine; I can get a discount. After all, you’ve all paid’. To cover Sue’s group costs, we had each paid a ‘sub’ of two pounds fifty.
We all finished our drinks and Sue led the way. Moments later, I discovered that I was in another part of the city that I had never been to before. I caught glimpses of the glorious façade of Fenchurch Street station before being distracted by another building: the Lloyds building.
The Lloyd’s building is one of London’s structures that I feel that I’ve always known about, perhaps because of its controversy and that it regularly features in architecture documentaries. I’ve heard it called an ‘inside out’ building, since all its services, such as pipes, staircases and lift shafts are located on the outside of the building to maximise internal space. The location and presence of these services seemed to represent a rich and honest form of ornamentation. I stopped to take a photograph.
‘I can show you around, if you like’ said Sue, noticing that I had stopped. ‘There’s a much better picture of it around the other side’.
Sue took us to the foot of the building, where there was a bar. I looked around. I could see concrete columns and stainless steel staircases. Sue charmed someone at the bar and managed to get us a table. I helped out by gathering up a few chairs so everyone could sit down. Whilst I was busy, a bottle of white wine arrived, along with five or six bottles of Italian beer magically arrived. Sue told us that she had worked for Lloyds for the past two years, commuting in from the east of the city. She had followed her father into the insurance business.
I enjoyed chatting to Sue. Despite having what I thought was a very good job, it struck me that she was struggling to put down roots in her city. She spoke of the challenge of paying extortionately high rents, the challenge of paying the bills and the challenge of trying to save up enough money for a deposit to buy a place of her own. The stresses and strains of living and working in the city, the energy you need to expend just to live, was obviously playing on her mind.
I chatted to another member called Kaz who was originally from rural Derbyshire and now lived in Essex, not too far from Sue. Kaz worked as a supervisor at a milk bottling plant having moved to London five months earlier. She spoke about her plans to return ‘home’ after a few years. London, for Kaz, was a temporary adventure.
I soon learnt that this was the first gathering of the group, which would explain the reason why it was quite small and there were no obvious cliques.
‘I really like the dynamic here’ said Sue. ‘I can tell that we’re all getting along really well’. Sue spoke about a house in Spain that she had access to. She started to talk about sharing of bedrooms.
Sue started to talk about the difficult years that are our ‘thirties’, that people are beginning to pair up, that there are reduced opportunities to meet people, that our biological clocks begin to tick loudly. Perhaps we think that every ‘decade’, whatever it is, feels difficult. I felt it was time to come clean with a couple of truths. I told Sue about my Meetup quest; she didn’t seem too worried. I then offered my second confession.
‘How old do you think I am?’
Sue hadn’t seen the age that I had used when I registered. I was also sporting a two day beard, the exact point when the grey starts to become obvious. Sue looked at me studiously. I had no real idea what to expect.
‘I think you’re thirty five’.
I loved Sue.
I told her my real age.
‘You’ve got a young face’. Sue wasn’t bothered that I was ‘technically’ a bit older than her group rules. I was secretly relieved. We continued to chat.
‘Being in your forties, for a man, is a bit like being in your thirties for a woman. I mean, you don’t want to be an old dad, do you? You don’t want to be having a kid when you’re in your fifties…’, said Sue, thinking out loud.
After an hour of chatting, it was time to go; people started to drift home. It struck me that they were all different; from different places and doing different jobs. In some way, Sue’s group was also an expression of London and its randomness. It had been fun.
I picked my way home through unfamiliar streets, walking along Gracechurch Street and then through Leadenhall Market, a part of the city I had never been to before. I later read that there has been a market on this site since the fourteenth century and it is located pretty much in the centre of the city. It is now surrounded by towering buildings; a physical market now surrounded by electronic ones.
Rather than catching the train home, I caught a bus. When I was on the bus, I asked myself a simple question: would I go on holiday with these guys if we manage to get something sorted out? I didn’t have to think for too long before I had an answer: yes, I would.
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