Strangers met for dinner at 5 Portland eating places. Regardless of our fears, it was enjoyable.

PORTLAND — About quarter-hour after three of us sat down at a sales space behind the Wharf Street Yacht Club, we began getting the sensation that the others weren’t coming.

The waiter had already been by a pair occasions and introduced us water; it appeared impolite to ship him away once more. So, sure, we’d put in our drink order, we informed him. We simply needed to resolve if we had been getting cocktails or sticking to our Damp January plans …

I knew mine was in jeopardy once I received the textual content at 7 a.m. Wednesday from The Maine Dinner Club informing me the place I’d be consuming that evening. The Wharf Street Yacht Club, should you don’t know, just isn’t a personal marina however a bar, very similar to the others on the identical cobblestone block, with a barely noticeable nautical theme.

Still, I used to be excited to go someplace I hadn’t been earlier than and relieved that it wasn’t Chipotle — I’d chosen “fast casual” for a funds desire on the questionnaire (that additionally requested about dietary restrictions and life philosophy) meant to match me with an optimum eating locale and 4 dinner mates from among the many 26 individuals who signed up for the occasion.

Although different dinner golf equipment have been held in Portland earlier than, this was the primary one organized by Meagan Dobson as an extension of her Maine Menu Media model, which incorporates the food and travel Instagram account the place I noticed the occasion collection marketed.

The subsequent dinners are Feb. 12 in Biddeford and Brunswick. Dobson hopes to proceed holding them month-to-month, doubtlessly in cities all through the state, together with Bangor, Augusta, Camden and Bar Harbor.

I’ll admit, I most likely wouldn’t have signed up if it wasn’t one thing for me to put in writing about. I’d have dismissed it as an exercise for individuals determined for buddies, however the entire fact is that I want a greater motive than increasing my social circle to place myself by means of the nervousness main as much as what appeared like an inevitably awkward state of affairs.

Some who signed up could have let these fears get the very best of them, judging by the quantity of people that bailed. It might have been the slushy climate or for different respectable causes, however after listening to what number of of my fellow attendees questioned their sanity within the hours earlier than they met up with a bunch of strangers, I’m guessing there have been no-shows who determined to forfeit the $15.99 upfront price so they may keep of their consolation zone.

Not my desk mates, Kristen and Patrick, who made the trek into city from Westbrook and Waterboro, respectively.

Our dinner dialog revealed that Kristen, who moved to Maine 5 years in the past with out realizing anybody, has no worry in the case of placing herself on the market. While working remotely, she had determined she was prepared to depart her dwelling metropolis of Chicago, and Portland checked a variety of bins for her, together with its measurement and proximity to the ocean.

Since then, she’s met individuals by means of tennis and Zumba courses and brought them up on presents to do different actions. She has a month-to-month dinner date with a lady whose household she met on a visit to Canada over Thanksgiving one yr.

“I can talk to a wall,” she mentioned, and I imagine it.

Patrick, however, most likely wouldn’t have mentioned a phrase if his spouse had been there, he admitted. They moved to Maine from Oklahoma two years in the past, after steadily visiting New England, the place he’s a fan of the sports activities groups.

They hadn’t met many individuals but, moreover coworkers from his job as an electrician and their neighbors. When his spouse requested him to enroll in The Maine Dinner Club along with her, he agreed (but when it ended up being a swingers factor, they had been out, she joked).

Sitting between a talented conversationalist and knowledgeable question-asker, Patrick wasn’t given the possibility to choose out of speaking, and we simply stuffed an hour sharing our ideas about Maine, eating places and the explanations we’d have been matched (we’re all in our 40s and didn’t select the high-end eating possibility, we figured).

While the meals — sandwiches and a quesadilla — was tremendous, it wasn’t the main focus. Our collective decision-making course of to get cocktails, nevertheless, would have been a subject day for a sociologist to observe.

We didn’t depart with one another’s cellphone numbers however agreed we’d be open to taking part within the dinner membership once more, although it might need been rude to say in any other case. Knowing myself, I’d most likely want a immediate, however I’d encourage anybody who was curious to provide it a attempt to fortunately go on the similar time in solidarity, then meet up later.

Which brings us to the after social gathering, the place the varied teams consuming at eating places round city are invited to come back collectively at a location revealed an hour into the dinner. The organizers weren’t positive how many individuals would present as much as Argenta Brewing Co. in Bayside, which was slightly far to stroll on winter evening from the Old Port areas the place individuals had been eating.

I used to be the one one to go from my group and, a couple of half an hour after the 7 p.m. begin time, was nonetheless ready for anybody else to point out up. I made a decision to provide it slightly extra time, realizing from Patrick texting his spouse that her desk was simply ordering at Luke’s Lobster once we had been paying the separate checks Kristen had requested upfront. (Approached this fashion, splitting a invoice with strangers is definitely a lot simpler than with buddies who’ve totally different concepts of the way it must be finished.)

Eventually, a lady in her 50s from New Gloucester, who had eaten with a bunch at Old Port Noodle House, walked in. She was adopted by three extra middle-aged girls who got here collectively in a single automobile, nonetheless smiling from their dinner at DiMillo’s.

The desk stuffed out with a person in his 20s from Scarborough, who sat subsequent to his new acquaintance from the noodle home, and Rae Lambert, the Brunswick native residing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who based the software program platform used to do the matchmaking. Called DNNR, it’s helped launch dozens of different golf equipment nationwide this month, she mentioned. Similar apps, like Timeleft, orchestrate dinners amongst strangers in greater cities all through the world.

Our desk at Argenta was deep into dialog about addictive bagel outlets, salsa dancing and the problem of creating buddies as an grownup when a lady in her 30s got here up and excitedly requested if we had been with the dinner membership, too.

A gaggle of youthful attendees, who had eaten at Luke’s and Union Restaurant, had been at a desk proper close by. Soon, individuals began pulling up chairs to sit down collectively, with new conversations shortly sparking amongst potential buddies — for the longer term or simply for the evening.