Maybe there's sense in a women-only meetup event?
I just came from my first digital nomad meetup.com event in Barcelona. But joke's on me because it's set on a bar.
I've been to a lot of these networking events pre-pandemic, but mostly in Asia, and they're all legit, even when set in a bar ~ I'd meet actual startup founders who are looking to connect and get to know you more. Sometimes I'd meet a very aggressive networker who just gives out business cards, but I get that too since they're hustling.
I couldn't have guessed that this event, was far from what I was expecting.
Expectations:
- Meet digital nomads, who stay in Barcelona for only a few months (maximizing their passport stay of 90-180 days in schengen)
- Meet startup founders heavy on the IT side
Reality:
- No digital nomads, just people who came there and migrated to Spain already so they've been here for a while. No digital nomad tips here.
- Spanish people preferred to talk to other Spanish people, in Spanish
- I did meet some entrepreneurs, but they were not on the IT side.. some freelancers, a lot were employed
- Women were dressed with gowns and heavy make up (I went with just tshirt and jeans because of my limited luggage space)
- I kind of listened in to some conversations but they were just talking about girls? I heard the term chikas a lot
There were about 50 people, I didn't talk to a lot of them because I preferred to zoom into deep conversations. Luckily I found 1 potential friend who was into business and spirituality.
Majority of those attended were guys, and the girls were so dressed up that they weren't interested in talking to me (?). With a real networking event, whenever you do eye contact, people would at least try to ask for your name and what you do. This did not happen here at all.
And by the end of event, a guy did talk to me, but he was kind of weird. My friend suggested that maybe he was looking for a one-night stand. We had to make up an excuse and run inside the newly-arrived bus, and leave it to Google maps to lead us back home later on..
Then it dawned to us.. We are in Europe.. The culture here is different. People have different agendas here (with their wild culture)..
So yeah, maybe there's sense in having women-only events..