Thinking about starting a Meetup group

One of my goals for 2010 is to be more social and make new friends. Everyone who knows me knows that I'm not really a person who goes out a lot. However, I would really like to change that for the new year. It's not that I want to go out all the time and close down bars, but I would like to at least get out a few times a month. Some people go out every weekend. I'm not sure if I want to go that far just yet, but I won't say it's completely out of the question.

The majority of the meetups near me are in Atlanta. That's cool and all, but for someone who drives an hour one way to work (away from Atlanta) it can be a little difficult to travel into Atlanta, especially if it's a meetup that's after work. That would mean I need to drive 60 miles back towards my house and then (probably) another 25 or more miles past my house into Atlanta. I'm not sure if I want to do all of that driving.

Because of that, I'm seriously thinking about starting my own meetup group. If you don't know what meetup is, it's a social website which consists of clubs with varying interests. There are bowling meetups, dinner and a movie meetups, coffee meetups among other things. I think initially it started out as a dating social site, but it has gone way past that. They do, however, have groups still geared towards dating, and...for the BOLD, they have meetups for swingers. That's definitely NOT my cup of tea, but more power to anyone else who's into that.

I'm a little nervous about starting a meetup because even though I am a person who can (for the most part) get along with lots of different people, I am actually very shy. It's such a big task, and I'm wondering if I'm up to the challenge. Plus, I've never organized a group before, so I'm wondering if I can really do it. I think I can, but, as with anything I'm a little apprehensive with something new.

My main purpose for doing this is to meet for black women (and men). I have "friendships" (read: acquaintances) with several white people. I have a true friendship with one white male (who I love to death), but I want to truly meet down to earth, black females that I can hang out with and (eventually) have a true friendship with. I'm not going to find them by just staying home. Also, not too many people go out of their way to interact with me. I've tried, but sometimes it's hard. I found out years ago that many women (and some men) think that I'm stuck up, but when they get to know me it's cool. The thing is, as more time has gone past, more women don't want to take the chance to get to know me. I have tried to do all that I can to appear friendly, but it just doesn't work. I'll see what else I can do about that in 2010.

Now, I'm off to look at some meetup groups that I currently belong to and try to find out what all a meetup group entails. I just need to refrain from joining another meetup group (because I belong to A LOT).