Last night hubby and I were talking about a friend of his, who’s soon to be wife, is having a hard time out here (in Colorado) and wants to move back to the state they came from. AH!

She’s having a hard time because she does not know what she wants to do for work (who does) and does not have a lot of friends. (They moved here because of his job.)

I feel bad for her. Truly! Meeting new people when you aren’t working can definitely suck.
And you don’t always want to mooch off your partner’s friends.
Although some times you can find some dear and lasting friends that way!!

Anyhoo – that got me thinking about my current social engagement calendar. As well as what the hubby is doing.
There are so many groups out there. All kinds of group – heck I even saw a knitting drinking group getting together at dazzle to help support the troops. Really – how cool is that? On so many levels! If only i could knit! Maybe i could go and hold the yarn?

Some of my recent outings:

• Denver Happy Hour – met at 9th door – all different walks of life and business and age etc etc etc
• Yelp Elite Event – met at Jonesies Eat Bar – again all different kinds of people that come together because we like to eat!
• Walnut Room for drinks – met up with a friend hubby made on twitter
• Gym – tons of friends made there- and i’m usually a heads down, music loud, sweat it out typeo f gal
• Cruise Room for drinks – a couple old co-workers, but also a friend of a friend – again another way to mooch and get some good people. they have already been vetted!

Some of Hubby’s outings:

• Denver Tweetup at Steuben’s – again a bunch of different kinds of people that are all on twitter
• Re-Fresh at Forrest Room 5- some sort of web techie thing
• My Brothers Bar – post re-fresh outing to talk about creating another gathering
• RMAUG – rocky mountain adobe user group

What I’m getting at, is i could be busy every dang night of the week without trying. The one caveat – you have to make the effort to introduce yourself. Sure it can be nerve racking going into someplace where you don’t know anyone. But just put a smile on your face, put our hand and say “Hi, I’m Nicole, how are you?”

Denver has a fabulous network of groups that embrace all walks of life and cover just about anything you might do in your spare time, or for work!

Here is just a few off the top of my head! Please add your favorites in the comments!

Options for meeting people:

• Yelp – events going on all the time – and you don’t have to be elite for most of them
• Meetup

Networking

• Denver Happy Hour –
• Denver Diva’s
• Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce – great luncheons with awesome topics. And you don’t have to be female to attend
• Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce –
• Linked In – (there are groups for all professions, sometimes they do happy hours etc)

Techie Type Groups

• Re-fresh
• RIA User Group
• RMUAG