sticky strangers, part one

and the lasting absurdity of Meetup encounters.

I peer through the cutout window into the small galley kitchen, dressed in faded corn Formica and illuminated by a tea-stained fluorescent light cover. The carpet in the main room looks like a defeated wheat field and the couch is a muddy amber. This whole scene is more yellow than a Mustards for Introverts Meetup.

Sad state of the setting confirmed, I started doing an ocular pat down of everyone in the room. We have a child-sized woman dressed like a missionary, fidgeting to find a place for her hands between her too long hair and floor length skirt. Next to her are two well-kept foreigners new to the city and trying to follow any social queues from the safety of the couch. Hosting is a Goliath in glasses, pierced, pimpled and too pumped to have planned for a dozen people spending an afternoon in her living room. 

Then there is me, blonde shag and toothy grin, stuck to my Crayola-colored American Apparel skater skirt and hip length tank top like still wet wallpaper, failing at every turn to seem relatable. My corporate-style icebreakers like “what’s the hardest thing you’ve ever baked?” and “do you make your own vanilla or settle for store bought?” making everyone twitch. But what’s making me sweat is that twenty minutes have passed since I arrived and other than my try-hard, pillow-soft marshmallows there is no food in sight.

I scan the room in a rising panic. Have I found myself at the baking version of a tediously reading-free book club? Is this another, “oh I just love to read, but who has the time? Let’s drink some wine!” club rooted in a group of women thinly veiling their interest in peacocking around their busy-girl status as a substitute for having a personality, let alone a hobby? I will jump right out of this dirty window.

Instead of jumping I take a deep breath, letting my determination to make connections flow over me. I wasn’t going to take red flags for an answer. I was going to scented-pink-resume the shit out of this Meetup.

The winter prior I had learned to make homemade marshmallows which was perfect for killing it at ‘no-bake’ baking club. I printed out a dozen copies of the recipe, glued them on hand-cut cardstock and adorned the cards with marshmallow stickers because I wanted to be hated by everyone for trying too hard.

thank you 2012 IG account for coming through with evidence of this event

It was now August, the month you realize you’ve wasted your summer thinking about whether or not you’re wasting your summer. The month that makes getting dressed feel like you’re trying to deglaze a cinnamon roll. The month when you are terrified to even catch a fleeting glance of the oven. The month you start scrambling to collect all those people and memories that you’ll store in the emotional basement of your Chicago brownstone and trot out on the first of March when you feel like you’ll lose your mind if you look at your roommate or a root vegetable one more time.

To put it lightly, I was in desperate search of community. I had just moved in with my now husband, and felt settled enough to ignore my perfectly reliable friends in search of people with common interests. In 2012, there was no better place selling connection with the other desperate, platonic seekers than Meetup.

In hindsight is was clear that Meetup was the place where special interests went to die. Jewish Women Who Love Reggae Tennis Meetup. 1000 Classics to Read Before You Die Meetup. Sitting in the Backrow While Watching Black and White Movies for People Who Are Coupled with Partners Who Have Never Even Seen The Goddamn Goonies Meetup.

Hi, everyone…I’m Mia

But there I was, sitting uncomfortably close to my window AC unit, in my daytime indie sleaze outfit, emotionally sweating as I scrolled through the oddities people have revealed about themselves on the internet in the hopes that they are not alone. I was feeling optimistic about the kind of folks who are willing to co-mingle with strangers after powering through some benign movie meetups and absolutely crushing the most alpha-run book club of failed academics of all time.

Chicago Baker’s Meetup had a promising track record of official attendance and monthly events. I had a decade long interest in baking and very few friends that liked to cook at the professional amateur level.

From the event archive it appeared that events focused on a theme, then everyone brings a dish et voilà, home baking trade secret gossip ensues. Previous months like ‘vanilla’, ‘fruit’ and ‘boozy’ all seemed relatively harmless.

But remember, it’s August. Nobody wants to bake when your apartment is conveniently located between the alley baking your trash and the face of the sun. So the August theme was “no bake.”

Acknowledging that this was probably an awkward entry point, I soldiered on. I packed myself and my box of individually-packaged-girl-bossing-so-hard-that-Sheryl-Sandburg-would-be-uncomfortable candies for safe passage down Chicago’s brown line train, infamous for its noticeable absence of brown people.

That glittering promise of connection sites that provide a false sense of endless choice, leaving us feeling more alone than when we started.

I use the 15-minute ride to ask lie to myself about my hopes for this Meetup. The stated purpose to my existing friends was to talk shop with other experienced home bakers and to gather inspiration and ideas for future projects.

If I’m honest though there is definitely a 2012 part of me that was optimistic that “better” friends with more intimately shared interests were waiting for me on the other side of a screen. That glittering promise of connection sites that provide a false sense of endless choice, leaving us feeling more alone than when we started.

My optimism slows along with the train. A few blocks from the station, the building comes into view. It’s a yellow washed brick walk up covered in scaffolding because there are only two seasons in Chicago, winter and construction. By the look of the folks entering and exiting, the foundation was also supported by decades of student loan debt.

Slugging my way up the caramel carpeted staircase, profusely sweating past the floors which are reasonable to walk up to, I start to wonder if I’m midway into another wasted afternoon.

Who that is worth being friends with will be desperate enough to be there? Will any of these people know how to bake? I tell myself, most people who like to cook just bring food to the friends they already have. As I reach the top of the staircase I wonder, have my mean girl marshmallows melted on this ascent to small talk hell with other sticky strangers?

Make America’s Test Kitchen recipe for marshmallows to impress some strangers.

I am relieved to hear that a comfortable amount of bustling is already brewing as I walk up to the door. I knock. Someone unfamiliar with the door wrestles with the handle. “Come on in,” says the gate keeper concealing their own nervous sweat inside a pair of eight-eye Dr. Martens in August.

Over the next half hour people trickle in and make the standard support-group small talk that plagues the Meetup introduction. “Hi I’m Mia, and it’s been 64 days since my last bake. I’m here because I’ve been burdening my friends with monologues about 50 year old recipe trends from restaurants so obscure that the historical context needed to make it interesting takes as many years to explain.”

“Welcome, Mia,” the desperate to bake chant in unison.

Remember appointment television? Me neither. In any event, tune in next Thursday for sticky strangers, part two, where we meet the real star of this encounter.

• Reading - Zhivago’s Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia by Vladislav Zubok (2011) because 1960s literary counterculture is my jam worldwide.

• Listening - Bewitched by Laufey (2023) whose intoxicating and ethereal reworking of classical, princess songbook and jazz I first heard last summer in Newport, but can now be heard all over Tiktokdom.

• Snacking - Maple leaf sandwich cookies which I understand to be Quebecer’s version of Oreos, meant to be dunked in milk and savored with child like reverence, regardless of age or taste.

• Watching - The Bear (2023) because we only pay for Hulu during football season.

• Smelling - INFLORESCENCE (송아리) by ELOREA (2023) which firmly puts me in me in my berry perfume era while simultaneously helping me slide into the warm notes of fall.

1. On a scale from marshmallow to rock candy, how hard is it to make new friends as an adult?

2. My most ridiculous/wonderful/hilariously failed Meetup story is _______________.

3. What can we expect from adult friendships that differs from childhood ones?

4. What might we expect from marshmallows?