Once upon a time i.e. before COVID, Bay Area had a really exciting meetup scene. In fact, going to meetups used to be the highlight of my visits here - the energy in the room was uplifting and always put a smile on my face.

I moved to the Bay Area about a year ago and it seems like COVID has killed a lot of meetups. A lot of groups have gone virtual and moved to Zoom, Slack, Discord etc.

I strongly prefer the in person camaraderie and going through the following thread, it seems like I am not the only one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32902293

So, I decided to scratch my own itch. I have created a Hacker News Meetup for Bay Area:

https://www.meetup.com/meetup-group-zxkdpjmb/

It looks like enough people are interested in different parts of the Bay Area that we can alternate meetups in SF and in South Bay/Peninsula.

If anyone wants to help out or can host a meetup, please email me - my profile here has my contact details.

As someone who has run a meetup before for engineers, please, please, please tell people to wear deodorant. You may think it's weird to do but it needs to be written and said verbally. We got kicked out of a Borders because of the stench of BO from so many people. It's crazy that it has to be said but it does, especially in this kind of community.