Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone: An Introvert Goes to an Event Alone

My personal hell is going to big social events where I don’t know anyone or have to fend for myself as the one person I might know weaves seamlessly in and out of a crowd they’re familiar with. Needless to say, signing up for events where I don’t know anyone isn’t my strong suit.

Loneliness and feeling a sense of otherness has been a theme many times in my life, and currently I’m going through a flare-up. When I changed my lifestyle, I didn’t realise it would also mean changing my relationships. Some friendships that I thought would be there for a while withered. And suddenly, as I stand here witnessing friends and family meet new milestones such as getting engaged and having kids, my world has started feeling rather hollow again as I grapple with my path diverging from those close to me.

So, in an attempt to make more friends, I joined an event called Fuck The Small Talk, organised by the very seriously named Epic Llama. Stemming from Berlin, this event aims at shaking people from all walks of life together. But rather than herding people into an event space and hoping for the best as they awkwardly adjust the umbrellas in their cocktails, they come with a plan.

I stumbled upon the event browsing the community site Meetup. I’ve been a member since 2017, but I’ve never joined an event. When bouts of loneliness hit, I’ll browse their communities but ultimately remain a lurker. I’d see some events that would pique my interest but inevitably, envisioning making an entrance into a space I’d never been to or meeting new faces felt so overwhelming I’d eventually close the tab. Then I saw Fuck The Small Talk.

The event is limited to 25–30 people, they have a plan in place to help you mingle, and they encourage you to come alone. This felt like a more manageable setting for me, so I signed up, which included filling out a form. Questions ranged from age to where you fell on the extroversion/introversion scale. With limited seats, you need to be selected, and I was chuffed when I got an email saying I’d made the cut (though I’m sure they’re not very picky and it’s more a first-come, first-served basis—they did not strike me as elitist). I signed up over a month before the event. Once signed up, you were told you’d receive the exact location 24 hours before the event. I was instructed to be at the Ruby & Mimi Hotel at 18:45 to check in and that the event would start sharply at 19:00—true Swiss precision.

Two hours before the event started, I began feeling nauseous—this happens every time I go to an event where I don’t know anyone and anticipate having to be social with foreign faces. I walked the 25 minutes to the venue to try and shake my jitters. I got there at 18:43 and waited outside the hotel until it was 18:45, not wanting to be an awkward first-arriver. I was relieved to see I wasn’t the first one at the event and there was a small queue to sign up by the host.

Once by the host, I was told to locate my name tag and write a year on it that meant a lot to me. This was to act as a conversation starter as attendees mingled before the official start time. I went with 2023—the year I released my EP and met many milestones with my music, and also the year I decided to actually turn my life around.

I will not lie, the first 20–25 minutes were awkward. Over the years, I’ve learned how to be an extroverted introvert, but it does not fall naturally to me to just randomly walk up to people and start a conversation. However, motivated by the fact most of us were in the same boat and I wasn’t about to bust in on some intimate reunion, this is what I did. Despite the name of the event, I engaged in small talk, asking boring questions—“What brought you to Switzerland?” “How long have you been here?” “Is this your first time at a FTST event?” “Where do you work?” As I engaged in surface-level talk, I did my best to include people standing around nursing a drink on their own, clearly introverted and too shy to make a move. The year on the name tag helped inspire talk, but there was still a sense of jolty conversation. I was relieved when the hostess announced we were kicking off the event.

The first phase revolved around the crowd getting to know each other better. The hostess asked polarising questions and you were instructed to move to one side of the room depending on what statement you related to, or the middle if it was neither.

• Are you a morning person or a night owl? Morning—thanks to my alarm.

• Are you a coffee or tea person? Tea, now that I’ve quit caffeine.

• Are you a planner or a spontaneous person? Planner. 100%.

• Are you planning on staying in Switzerland for 1–2 more years or do you want the house, the dog, the kids and white picket fence? Middle—I was undecided.

• Sweet or savoury? Sweet.

• Dreamer or a rationalist? Dreamer—my head is in the clouds.

For the next bonding experience, the hostess fed us questions and we were tasked to couple up with someone in the crowd and share our answers. For each question, you had to find a new partner. After each question, the host would ask for some volunteers to share their answers.

• What are you currently obsessed with? My partner was a small, enthusiastic, young Italian girl who animatedly talked about her passion for clubbing, particularly techno music, and how she comes alive on the dance floor. I hate dancing, so I could not relate. Once she’d finished her impassioned talk, she sweetly turned the question to me—my current obsession? Almond butter. Not exactly a rager.

• If you had to write a book, what would it be about and what would you call it? I Want My Dogs to Die and Other Unsavoury Truths—I shared this with the audience thanks to my partner encouraging me to.

And so on, so forth. These two activities had us weave our way in and out of each other, offering glimpses of our personalities.

When we collected our name tags, the hostess also handed us a card from a deck of cards. The second phase of the night included finding the people with the same card and sitting at a table where we were given four cards with questions on them. We had 30 minutes to discuss the questions. As I settled down around a cosy wooden table with my fellow Queen-card holders, the hostess explained she’d grouped us based on the interests we’d mentioned in the forms. Ours: reading/writing.

This was without a doubt my favourite part of the evening. I am not a crowd person; I prefer an intimate setting, so sitting at the little table next to my two conversation buddies was more in line with my social activity preferences. I was grouped with a 25-year-old German man and a 32-year-old Portuguese man. The 30 minutes flew by as we dived into the conversation starters. Aside from our shared love of writing/reading, we discovered we also shared having to overcome the fear of rejection. One card asked us to describe what an exhibition in a museum about ourselves would include—mine: pens, notebooks, microphones, and probably something with French bulldogs. Another question asked us how our exes would describe us. Naturally, we were all delusional and said they’d give us high praises.

The conversation ended before I wanted it to, as the hostess said it was time to take a 15-minute break. After the break, we were asked to engage in another activity à la phase one. This time, we did a fire round of rock, paper, scissors. Whoever won had to find the winner of another team until there was one ultimate winner. Losers had to cheer on the person they lost to. I did not enjoy this game.

The next activity included standing in a circle and entering it with a statement about yourself. If other people related, they could jump in. This activity was met with some faces looking like question marks—mine included. To demonstrate, the hostess jumped in and said, “I have a useless talent.” She was joined by a few others, with one of them demonstrating her useless talent of being able to look like a monkey. One girl bravely jumped in, declaring she is non-monogamous. She was joined by one other girl. One girl jumped in to say she loved theatre improv. The next person jumped in to say her personal hell would be theatre improv, and I joined her huddle.

After this, we were asked to look at the symbol drawn on our name tags and find the people with matching symbols. Mine was a flower. This time, we were grouped based on age. I was reunited with my book-question buddy, the Italian lady who had encouraged me to share the title of the book I am writing. Our third buddy was an Argentinian man. Again, we were given conversation cards and by the time the hostess called “time,” we weren’t done with our chat.

This last conversation marked the end of the event. As people started to gather their things, small groups formed where people scanned each other’s WhatsApp QR codes. I collected a few numbers and exchanged a few messages with some of my fellow FTST attendees that night. Only time will tell if we’ll actually keep in contact.

Instead of taking the tram, I walked back home to shake off the energy of the event, but I left with a sense of pride. For one, I did it. I went out of my comfort zone, showed up at an event where I knew no one, and tried my best to immerse myself and take part. I didn’t drink—usually I use alcohol as a crutch at these types of events, but I decided to be fully present regardless of whether it would be great or awful. And most importantly, I showed up as I wanted to be. I talked about my music, I talked about my writing, and I shared my struggles, my dreams, and my hopes, all without feeling judged — and that, for me, is essential for feeling comfortable in social settings.