Um, I beat Noita once. I beat FTL: Faster Than Light on Hard sometimes. I beat Pocket Rogue once. I also scored first-place in some hard-difficulty Moon Rider VR beatmaps, but I gotta get back into that.
Oh. Yes, then it is absolutely the numbers game at work. Out of 5-10 gatherings you attend, you might strike it off with 1 person... to be just an acquaintance at first. We have to put on really thick skin, and if any certain group just isn't working out, move on to find another; don't try to keep hoping things will improve (I mean, they might, but it's typically faster in my experience to just try different groups altogether).
I think you're on the right path and just gotta keep going. Sorry that last event was discouraging, but don't give up!
It should be more on a regular basis with a focal point than just random meals. Board-gaming, glass-blowing, rock-climbing, something—what do you like or would be willing to try?
When you have another topic as the focal point of your meetup, there is less weight on you to have to purely carry the conversation nonstop. Join or start a movie-watching or hiking group, etc. There's so much out there. Forming a new group takes a lot of sustained effort over years, but if some new additions get interested enough to help run events, it gets way easier. Accept help quickly, after some brief vetting.
I once thought of that, too! It's apparently almost more about personality traits than past experience. The same goes for 911 dispatcher jobs, it seems.
Well, we still have to get approval. But it just seems like they don't mind as much. For example, I don't know how many companies out there would be fine with installations of AutoHotkey and LibreOffice.
There, all fixed now.