The second floor of the SoCal Vibes Co. brewery in Carson is packed with people laughing and drinking, and you might think everyone here knew each other – but you’d be wrong. This is a mixer for people trying to connect.
You’ve heard of speed dating. Well, welcome to a speed friending event known as Skip the Small Talk.
As with speed dating, organizers pair people off for 10 minutes of conversation. You can talk to your partner about anything or use the questions provided on the prompt cards. The entry fee is $16.50 — but free for BIPOC people.
The event bills itself as a way to help people get closer, faster. That description piqued the curiosity of Ariel Leigh Cohen, 32. She’s an intimacy coordinator who works in LA and says she’s here tonight because “finding community in LA is pretty difficult. It's very isolating out here. So I saw this event and I was like, ‘that's where I have to go.’ I need authentic, deeper conversations in order to create that community, and this fit that bill.”
The founder of these events felt just that way about Boston when she moved there after graduating from college. Ashley Kirsner says she joined a craft beer club as a way to meet new people. She met up with them every week, but Kirsner felt like it wasn’t going anywhere. “We would just end up talking about the surface level stuff, we would talk about our jobs,” Kirsner says. “And then that would be kind of it. We had all the ingredients for friendship to happen except for this deeper conversation.”
Kirsner knew she wasn’t the only one, and dreamed of getting all the lonely people together. So in 2016 she posted an event on Facebook inviting all comers for a night of conversation. To her surprise, more than 40 people showed up.
“It felt like a dream,” she recalls. “It was like … ‘where were all of you at all the parties I've attended in the last year? Where were all of you?’ And the irony is that they were there, they just didn't feel comfortable opening up in that setting.”
One of the people who attended told Kirsner afterwards that she should continue hosting these events. Now Skip the Small Talk has spread out to 12 cities across the U.S. It’s even made its way to Paris, France.
Angelenos looking to make friends attend a speed friending event known as Skip the Small Talk. Photo by Tim Huynh.
And Kirsner has swept up other people in her excitement, including Tim
Huynh. He’s the facilitator for LA’s Skip the Small Talk events. He reached out to Kirsner about a year ago to help her bring the event to LA. His original goal was to be a participant. He hopped on a call with Kirsner where she told him he was hired. “And I was like ‘for what?’ And so she basically said ‘to be a facilitator.’ That wasn't really my intention … but also yeah I’m down.”
He says his favorite part of the event is seeing how many people stay afterwards to keep the conversation going. “Sometimes people will be here longer than we are and they've already been talking for two hours,” he says. “We hear [about] people going on dates afterwards, or staying close friends … and so now they have a buddy in their town or city around their neighborhood. I think the combination of just seeing people really relax into this event, and then also make connections that they probably otherwise wouldn't have is … really fulfilling for me.”
It worked for Gardena resident Ashley Clark, 34. She stayed after the event in Carson and called the night a success. “I enjoy musicals, I found two people who were very into those. So I'm like, yes! Let's get these numbers, let's set up these events!”
Skip the Small Talk hosts events in LA every month. Check out their website for upcoming dates.