I want to start a book club irl. I'm trying to be proactive in my social life and put effort towards making friends and meeting people. I live about one block from my local library and I am fricking dying to make some actual human connection. Maybe then, I'll make more friends than the few I have left, not to mention that word on the street is b***hes love book clubs. I'm nervous as frick though. I've never started a group or club myself, and unfortunately I live in a small town where these niche groups and spaces just don't exist. I've also been kind of a loner most of my life, just the thought of doing this makes me anxious as hell. I keep wondering what I'll do if nobody joins, if I can't commit to it, or if it just goes poorly. I love reading, but I want to find others to share that love with instead of just reading alone like always. Anyone with advice on book clubs or just clubs in general, please share. Also, how can I overcome the fear and self-doubt and just do it?
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Anon just relax for God's sake. You're going to make yourself vomit or something.
How do I even find a fricking club to join
Ai was built for this shit op.
Get it to write you a schedule, promotional material, agenda, talk to it to figure what books will target who.
Use it to find out what to say about each book, use it to figure topics to discuss etc.
Ai is extremely good at this type of work.
This opie, just host an ai bot and let people talk to it.
lol imagine if somebody unleashed an ai to start all these groups and invited everyone along. It could cause so much chaos. One ai could trick thousands of people to attend all sorts of made up groups.
Don't worry anon. Push through the nervousness and see what happens. Life is wonderful if you let it guide you.
What's the worst that could happen?
OP gets 3 members to join his club, but they don't like him and talk behind his back. After deciding among themselves, they'll quit the club and make one without him.
The only person that shows up is the local crack head who follows OP home, waits for him to go to sleep, then rapes and murders OP. But honestly, the most likely bad outcome is that nobody shows up at all. Odds are some old heads are going to appear. If you provide snacks and beverages they will come and at least hear you out OP.
If OP is shy and awkward the worst thing that could happen is people actually showing up.
Start small, honestly just try to find someone who is intellectually curious, doesn’t necessarily have to be someone who reads. Work a job, frequent the library or a bookstore and try to find someone through there. Even just having one reliable friend makes you immediately more trustworthy to everyone. Also if you can help it, try to look good and get in shape. Looks basically help in everything related to socialization. Strike up a convo with random people who don’t appear busy with anything. Just be very relaxed and simple minded, it’s not a matter of impressing them. If you frequent certain places and keep bumping into the same strangers there will come a point where they’ll be comfortable enough to just meet up with you, and they might as well be friends that point.
>t. Very lonely and depressed 20 year old guy who s trying to figure it out (like everyone else in my generation)
I hate that life ends when you're done with school. Its so lonely. I guess we're supposed to have wives and start out families now? Fat chance...
why would anyone want to join a book club, much less start one? might as well just go out clubbing or something because it sounds like your priority is in socializing instead of reading.
I have some experience running a book club in a small town, though admittedly we were quite close to University.
The guy who started it quit early so it was up to me to keep it going. By that point we were somehow on the treadmill of reading a lot of German literature so that somehow became the club rule, and also good way of avoiding the usual midwit choices. Still doesn't get you out of reading a lot of crap books but it was absolutely to our benefit.
Also your job is to be a good host. We started in my garden where I would bring out beer and snacks and kept encouraging our one Italian incel to bake stuff as he was really good at it. And later moving to the pub during the winter.
Organizing is half the battle. Messaging people a week in advance to make sure they're coming, as well as reminding them to read that book they haven't even picked up yet, is important. This was before WhatsApp but we had a Facebook group that proved really useful.
Also giving people a bit of ownership over the choice of books. I almost always knew what we were going to be reading next but I made it seem Democratic nonetheless.
Lastly we didn't have any nightmare members (except for one guy who pretended he was an intellectual despite never reading anything and who I'm convinced posts on lit) but I can't take any responsibility so finding them. The guy who started it really found some terrific people, one of whom is now a moderately famous painter. But I wouldn't know how you go about finding them.
Oh damn, good idea anon
I should take a look if my town has any book clubs. I had a little 3 people "book club" with 2 friends of mine for a bit, but that's been pretty stagnant lately
Nike that b***h. Just do it
Be nervous, do it anyway. Putting yourself out there is always hard, but it's slightly less hard every time you do it. If no one joins, at least you tried, which imo is preferable to not trying and thinking shoulda/woulda/coulda.
they're going to smell how desperate you are. i recommend just joining a few book clubs first. i'm sure you could find something on goybook or telegram. that said, most book clubs with any women in them are going to be reading slop and the level of discussion is going to be low. even if it were just dudes, the average person's reading comprehension is abysmal. i had to tell a guy that Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality was a series of essays but he insisted it was an aphoristic work. it literally says First Essay in the first few pages. that's what you're going to be dealing with most of the time, but if you get lucky enough to be discussing a few books you actually appreciate, just discuss them at an acceptable level of autism based on everyone else's treatment of the book.
honestly if you have money to burn, maybe join a few lectures instead. take the units on audit and hope you don't get anyone pozzed. hell, even that's alright if they at least read well. i would recommend a discord server though as readers are generally on the avoidant side. getting everyone comfy in chat and then moving to irl meetups is a good bet.
You just have to do it, that's how you make it in life mate, push yourself.
Book clubs are for wine-sipping, suburban women. Real men wander-off into the litter-strewn lumber plantations referred to in America and Europe as "the woods".
I don't know if I'd be able to do what you're trying to do
How do you get people to join? What book will you be reading? This is all a morass of danger and you even considering it makes you a braver man than I
>Read books / write books
You are now automatically In The Book Club. You'll be reached out to by other bookers, subtly, and you won't feel as alone as you do, because you interact with books.
Why bother? I stay in my room all day and I'm doing just fine. Can't understand why people still crave friendship after failing so many times. I gave up and I haven't looked back simcd.
since*
I want to kill myself. I'm a virgin.
Fear and self-doubt are meaningless. Do it and do it right, if you form a club you will likely look back at this and laugh that you ever had those feelings. If it does not work out then you at least attempted one and made the best attempt possible.
The most important thing is to keep it going regularly, no cancellations, no giving up the club because nobody/few showed up for the first year. There is somebody who lives in your town who won't even know your club exists for a few years, and when they do join, the'll stay forever.
Make it welcoming, try to appeal to people who aren't bookgays as well. And do your own PR/marketing, and have future members market for you aka Word of Mouth. Make sure people know about it. If you put an ad at a local store, keep that ad there forever, not just 1 month and done. Make your club a place that people recommend, even if they aren't into books.
use AI to simulate the club members