Tourists were taking pictures, carrying bags, popping into gift shops, and a couple were snogging outrageously by the statue of Eros.
I couldn’t see anything that resembled my destination: a nightclub. I looked at the street signs, and found the difference between Piccadilly and Piccadilly Circus, then crossed a road to change perspective. I recognised the street which I followed to get to the freelancer drinks event, and suddenly caught a glimpse of my destination, ‘The Piccadilly Institute’. I crossed another road. Two big burly bouncers were monitoring the entrance of the club.
After climbing two flights of stairs, I emerged into the club. I hadn’t been to a nightclub for well over a decade. There was a flash looking bar, and an illuminated dance floor. Thankfully, it wasn’t busy; I estimated around fifty people of varying ages, but most of them seemed to be in their thirties.
The event was described as a ‘night out and social for the mind body community’ that was suitable for ‘singles, whoever are ready to mingle’ and those who are involved in the ‘personal development and spiritual community’ or those who were ‘change-maker entrepreneurs’. The only box I ticked was the one marked ‘single’.
‘Hello everyone!’ it was our host, who had taken control of a microphone. Everyone started to clap and cheer. It was Kamal, the Meetup leader.
‘Thanks for coming everyone. There are a number of different groups coming together for the first time tonight, so I’m going to ask you to go and meet as many people as you can in five minutes; just go up over to them and shake their hands and tell them who you are. Okay! Go do it!’
I introduced myself to Kamal the moment he stepped down from the stage. Kamal was a life coach. He told me that he created his group so he could give something to others, to help people. We agreed to talk later, once the introductions were done.
‘Hello, I recognise you… Do you… Have you been to any tech events?’ said a chap called Ashley. I told him that I had been to quite a few. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember him. We spent a good few minutes going through different groups that we had been to.
‘Yes! That’s it! Women who code!’
‘The place that had a free bar, chicken wings and a talk about high frequency trading?’
‘Yes!’
We had worked it out. Apparently Ashley hadn’t realise it was a women only event until he got there; he was just interested in the talk. Ashley had worked in the IT division of large banks, but had hated it; he wanted to stay in technology, but didn’t want to work in the banking sector anymore; he wanted a life.
I found myself in the middle of three people. We asked each other how come we found ourselves at this event. I explained my quest.
‘What kind of things have you been on…?’
‘There’s been lots of tech events, some book clubs, three types of yoga and two cults.’
‘Cults? What kind of cults?’
‘There was a sex cult that apparently isn’t a sex cult, and a neuro-linguistic programming cult’.
I then had to explain what happened at the ‘orgasm and climax’ talk.
‘What about the other one?’ asked Ed.
‘The NLP one? That one was all about how to get rich using NLP. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a pyramid scheme of nonsense. To get rich you’ve got to learn how to run these courses so you can teach other people how to do NLP... Sorry, what do you guys do? You don’t have anything to do with NLP do you?’
‘I’m a NLP certified master practitioner’ chuckled a woman called Alexis.
Suddenly I recognised someone. It was Sam, facilitator of the ‘master your confidence’ event. He wandered over to me and gave me a big hug.
‘How you doing, matey!’ he asked, giving me one of his huge smiles. ‘Did you feel a wave of positivity after the event on Saturday?’ I said I did. ‘Has that positivity been challenged?’ I replied that I was still feeling good.
I found myself in the middle of a new group of people: a chap called Justin and someone called Sebastian. Justin was smartly dressed. ‘You know Sam?’ asked Justin.
‘Yeah, well, I met him on Saturday at one of his events’.
‘He’s great. I spoke to him on the phone last night. He really helps you to set things out’. Justin was currently working in construction, but wanted to make a career change. He wanted to become a life coach and was studying for a coaching certificate; I never realised there was such a thing. ‘There’s all these models, like the GROW model, but I like the parts that are more philosophical. It makes it harder, a lot harder, but I think it’s important to have a solid academic underpinning’.
After ordering a beer from the bar, I found myself amidst a group of three more people.
‘We’ve just been talking about soulmates. Do you believe in soulmates?’
‘I don’t know. I guess I used to. I’m not sure anymore. I think I’m too cynical’ I replied, ruminating about my failed marriage, forgetting Sam’s advice.
‘A soulmate is someone who knows you completely; someone who completes you’ Helen explained. Helen was a Certified Love Attraction Coach. She started to tell me about a famous ‘love guru’ from America who is going to be speaking at one of her events.
‘It’s going to be amazing! I didn’t think she would be able to come to my event, but she is! She’s going to be talking about ‘manifesting love’’.
‘Sorry, ‘manifesting love’? Is that a bit like… the… what’s it called… the law of attraction?’ I replied, remembering my visit to the Yoga studios in South Kensington. The idea was if you think that you’re going to find love, you are going to find love.
After chatting to a landscape gardener, a software developer from Goldman Sachs and someone who wrote a best-selling book about ‘confidence’, I noticed that the club was a lot emptier than it had been; people were deciding to go home. Loud techno dance music had started up and people had started to move onto the dance floor. I stepped onto the half empty dance floor, had a boogie, went to the bar and got chatting to a girl called Annie. Annie asked me for my email address and phone number, and asked me whether I wanted to go dancing in Camden. I gracefully declined Annie’s kind offer; I needed to get ‘to the bitter end’ of the Meetup.
Half an hour later, I said goodbye to Kamal, gave Sam another man hug, and started to pick my way home through the crowds.
On my way home I used my phone to have a quick look at Helen’s website. Sure enough, there was some information about the event she had been telling me about. There was also a short biography, a list of prices, and video podcast where she was interviewed by someone about her Love Coaching. That someone just happened to be her very good friend, Sam.
No comments:
Post a Comment