{"id":19999,"date":"2024-12-01T11:26:33","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T11:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=19999"},"modified":"2024-12-01T11:26:33","modified_gmt":"2024-12-01T11:26:33","slug":"blind-dates-to-find-friends-how-two-women-are-organising-dinner-with-strangers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/?p=19999","title":{"rendered":"Blind dates to find friends: How two women are organising dinner with strangers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"DWASDWAS<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Mary and Juliette set up the Dinner with a Stranger society to encourage students to make more friends<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Last year, Juliette Sartori decided she wanted to expand her social circle, so she went on a coffee date with three people she had never met before.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt went really well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

“We ended up speaking for two hours and I still speak to them today. We all keep in touch.”<\/p>\n

Her friendship blind date was part of Dinner with a Stranger, the society Juliette and her flatmates started “on a whim” for fellow Glasgow University students who want to meet new people.<\/p>\n

Juliette, 21, had moved to Scotland from the US to study business and management and said it was harder to instantly connect with others as she found people “had a wall up” and were closed off. <\/p>\n

With students so plugged in and digital that they spend less time interacting with each other face-to-face, she didn’t have many opportunities to increase her circle of friends.<\/p>\n

And so Dinner with a Stranger was born.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought originally only 30 people would join,\u201d Juliette says. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t know what to expect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an out-there idea and the name throws people off from the start.\u201d<\/p>\n

But 200 people – a mixture of undergraduate and postgraduate male, female and non-binary students – signed up in the first month and the society has continued to grow ever since. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"DWASDWAS<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Juliette started the group in her third year of university as a “fun way to make friends”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Juliette’s friendship lottery is very different to the swipe right culture of the dating apps which dominate the lives of many young people.<\/p>\n

Firstly, it is about friendship and not romantic hook-ups. But it is also avoids complicated computer algorithms and relies instead on more traditional personality quizzes shared with members online at the start of every month.<\/p>\n

Prospective mate-dates are asked questions on a theme, ranging from their favourite music genre or most-loved Disney movie to their dream holiday destination.<\/p>\n

Then Juliette and five others spend hours manually pairing people up and sharing contact details before taking a step back to let the magic happen.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"DWASDWAS<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Juliette and Mary ask participants to fill in questionnaires to be set up with a potential friend<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

\u2018People are lonelier now\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Playing platonic Cupid alongside Juliette, Mary Yiorkadji quickly realised she wasn\u2019t alone in struggling to find friends at university.<\/p>\n

Originally from Cyprus, she says: \u201cThere are lots of people from different backgrounds and it can be really intimidating feeling like you\u2019re different and people won\u2019t understand you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old believes social media has had a negative impact on friendships.<\/p>\n

It comes as more and more people nowadays compare their lives to others online.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is really easy to get caught up in fake ideas from social media, which can cause loneliness and expectations that are never met,\u201d Mary says.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are lonelier now. Our generation is lonelier.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mary says Dinner with a Stranger has introduced her to the beauty of the blind friendship date.<\/p>\n

“I think one of the most important parts of university is to meet new people,” says the fourth-year economics and philosophy student.<\/p>\n

“In this way you don’t give power to the differences between people, you give power to things that matter in a friendship, which are the similarities you have.”<\/p>\n

She describes it as a “unique” way to meet and connect with others from all over the world. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"DWASDWAS<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Friendship matchmaker Mary said meeting new people is one of the most important parts of university<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

From friendship lottery to flatmates<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Second-year students Vanya and Hannah, who were paired up by Dinner with a Stranger in December last year, believe they would not have met each other if it wasn\u2019t for the group.<\/p>\n

Hannah, 20, from Manchester, says: \u201cSociety puts so much emphasis on romance that we forget how important friendships are.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says before meeting Vanya she was \u201cmiserable\u201d and would spend a lot of time by herself, but now her mental health has improved and she is more confident.<\/p>\n

The pair are now best friends and flatmates.<\/p>\n

Vanya, 19, says she enjoyed getting to know Hannah without \u201cpre-conceived ideas and expectations\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are talking to so many people online that they’re not properly talking to anyone,\u201d says the economics student, originally from India.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this way, you\u2019re going in with a completely open mind and you\u2019re getting to know someone as the conversation moves along.<\/p>\n

“You have to show that you’re making a genuine effort.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"DWASDWAS<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Vanya and Hannah believe more people should give friendship dating a go<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The future of the ‘fun experiment’<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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For Juliette, going on friendship dates with strangers has helped her to find her \u201cpeople\u201d.<\/p>\n

Confused as to why people think it is not normal to go on friendship dates to meet new people, she believes soon there will be more opportunities to take part in this \u201cfun experiment\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cIt\u2019s more of a modern way of making friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s taking the idea of meeting someone online from a dating website and turning it into friendships by seeing how well you mesh with that person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dating apps, such as Bumble, have already started to create similar versions for friendship-making, which Juliette thinks will become more mainstream as the idea expands.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cNow people are working from home and doing uni remotely, it is more common for people to stay at home all the time and you are less likely to go out and meet new people like you would have done five years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s modern but I think it will become more popular in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

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Source: <\/em> www.bbc.com\u2026<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DWAS Mary and Juliette set up the Dinner with a Stranger society to encourage students to make more friends Last year, Juliette Sartori decided she wanted to expand her social circle, so she went on a coffee date with three people she had never met before. \u201cIt went really well,\u201d she said. “We ended up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19999\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gpt.m2mbeta.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}