I love meeting entrepreneurs and hackers, or just motivated and brilliant people in general.<p>From my experience, the best time to make friends is during recreational activities as suppose to conferences. I could be wrong since I have been to far less conferences than "parties".<p>Thus, I'd like to conduct a survey to see what fun and social activities you guys do on Friday and Saturday nights.<p>Eventually, it will be nice to have a comprehensive data set, but let's just start with activities and places first.<p>Thank you for your input.
Living in NYC, Friday and Saturday nights tend to revolve around restaurants and bars. Although drinking is generally involved, this doesn't mean that it isn't a good time to get to know and engage in conversation with other entrepreneurs and hackers.<p>From my experience, the best way to quickly become friends with someone is to share a couple beers with them. Plenty of business, coding, and good general technical discussion can follow later.
I'm an introvert.<p>Friday night I head home, cook dinner, play with my dogs, fire up the woodburning stove if it's chilly, and read a book. Maybe call a friend or an out of state family member on the phone.<p>Saturday night I head out to "Guy's Night" with one or two friends - grab dinner out, head home, watch a DVD.<p>It sounds boring as hell, but it's exactly what I want to do.
Here in Seattle we have a group called Saturday House (<a href="http://saturdayhouse.org" rel="nofollow">http://saturdayhouse.org</a>), its a great meeting place, for meeting smart people who are working on great projects. (The tag line is a barcamp every weekend.) Usually at the end of Saturday House a group tends to head out on the town and have dinner at various locations.<p>Also there is the Six Hour Startup Group that I run, <a href="http://sixhourstartup.com" rel="nofollow">http://sixhourstartup.com</a> which hosts events on Sundays at one of the local bars.<p>We also have a Startup Drinks organization (Last Friday of every month, <a href="http://seattle.startupdrinks.com" rel="nofollow">http://seattle.startupdrinks.com</a>) and Hops and Chops www.hopsandchops.com (Every Thursday Night).
I started climbing indoors every week last year and have been keeping up with it since. It's very social, fun and develops your body in ways few other hobbies can. There are rock gyms in most densely populated areas I believe.<p>Plus there's less of a tendency for awkward, quiet moments as you get a break from eye-to-eye contact when you're actually climbing.
Friday and Saturday are the two nights per week that I go to bed early. I'm in bed by 9pm on Friday and not much later than 10 on Saturday.<p>Social scene is during the day. Saturday I spend playing rugby and hanging out with the club, no working. Sunday I have no-pressure brunch with my closest friends. Sunday afternoon I get a massage, and Sunday night is one of most productive coding sessions of the week - decompressing your brain for a couple days does amazing things.
It's more like a 3 step plan:<p>1) Go to a tech event on a weeknight, meet with people in a "formal" setting.
2) Conversation drifts to non-tech interests, comraderie develops
3) THEN on a Friday or Saturday night, I meet up with some of these same people in a more social setting<p>In addition:<p>4) ???
5) Profit!
I usually reserve conferences for weekday evenings if at all possible; it makes me feel less guilty if I end up drinking during the week at a conference than at a party or a bar.<p>Friday nights, we usually have band practice or a show somewhere, followed by drinking and hanging out with fans and friends. Saturday nights are usually filled with more partying or taking my girlfriend on a date.<p>I've spent many many weekends over the past few years working straight through on my startup, but since we've started to turn the corner of profitability, I've stopped doing that.
On a good Friday night, I go to the local comic shop and play a collectible card game. (One that's sort of like Magic: the Gathering, but different.)<p>I know, I know. Wild times, right? I enjoy it a lot, though. You get to use your brain, it's very competitive, and the social interaction is great.
I really enjoy the local Contra Dance scene. Most populous areas (and even some rural areas) hold regular dances.<p>For those not familiar with Contra Dancing, it is a called set dance vaguely reminiscent of Square Dancing, but the scene is very different. A very eclectic group of people from all walks of life attend. Most everyone is friendly and it is a great way to meet people.
I usually spend one evening at home with my girlfriend and the other evening going out with my girlfriend. We usually go out for dinner, or out with friends... Sometimes we just have dinner outside on the patio with a bottle of wine.
My wife is an artist so tech talk is banned, at least it is if she doesn't have someone to gossip with.<p>We live in San Francisco and tend to go see friends for dinner or drink, or meet them out some where. Sometimes we go to tech-event after-parties. I know and work with a bunch of guys who bring their wives/gfs who talk to each other while we talk shop.
If you're in Chicago, tomorrow night we're hosting a meetup on the north side for local writers, photographers, "twitter people" and anyone else who likes beer. <a href="http://www.mypunchbowl.com/parties/407573-windy-citizen-december-meetup" rel="nofollow">http://www.mypunchbowl.com/parties/407573-windy-citizen-dece...</a>
I live in Waterloo, and all my friends from highschool / college are pretty much in Toronto or other areas so hanging out with them is pretty tough but generally:<p>Friday - Sit at home with the girlfriend, relax, watch a movie, just appreciate that you've completed a good week of work. Oh wait, too bad we both work on Saturdays! She works 100% of the time, I work every second Saturday so basically Friday's are a way to relax and go to bed early as usual :)<p>Saturday - We like clubbing on late Saturdays as it's close + good music. Sometimes invite friends over, or go out to a restaurant, or try to check out any events going on in the city (sadly, good night-time events are rare here)<p>Most of my outings in the past year have been during the week. Concerts and other events which I go to a lot during the week. Geek meets on Mondays, etc.
If you are interested in having a date on Friday or Saturday nights, check out <a href="http://flowmingle.com" rel="nofollow">http://flowmingle.com</a><p>During the week we guide you through an introduction process with a group of around 20 other local people. The introduction process ends on Friday. When you find someone you are interested in we help you set up a meeting.
Quality time or so I like to call it.<p>Usually spent with the girlfriend, at friends, or very alone. I use the time to relax and turn my brain off. I usually avoid alcohol and stick to things more natural.
If I'm not doing school work, I'm typically freelancing. School + Paying the bills + Entrepreneurshipping is hard to maintain. Especially when two of them are mere formalities.