SINGAPORE \u2013 It started with a question: Can people make friends outside work, school and interest groups?<\/p>\n
Looking to meet new people, two friends sent out an open invitation for a social gathering. Anyone can join, but they must meet one simple requirement: Their name must be Chloe.<\/p>\n
The hosts \u2013 Chloe Tan and Chloe Chong, both in their 20s \u2013 wanted to see if a group of random individuals who share nothing but their first name can find common ground and connect.<\/p>\n
Tan, who hosts events as part of her job at a tech founder network, said she wanted to try something new.<\/p>\n
She found that events have a tendency to be \u201cquite structured\u201d, and participants usually have something in common.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to remove hobbies and traits entirely and strip it down to the basics,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat is the one thing we can keep as a shared trait?\u201d<\/p>\n
Introverts welcome<\/h2>\n
The first event, held on Aug 15 at an outdoor space next to Temasek Shophouse, was attended by about 25 people.<\/p>\n
It was planned without an agenda to allow people to \u201ccome as they are\u201d, said Chong, who works in sales for a data company.<\/p>\n
During the event, many of the participants shared that they usually shy away from socialising with strangers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of them told us that they are introverted, but this event was so fresh and (only those named Chloe) qualify for it, which encouraged them to join,\u201d Tan said.<\/p>\n
Chong added that the requirement meant that people were more likely to turn up alone. \u201cIt lessened the participants\u2019 fear of there being in-groups or the possibility of being outcast,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
One attendee, also named Chloe Tan, echoed the sentiment.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old Singapore Management University student said participants at other events \u2013 such as ones held in school \u2013 usually have a purpose in mind. \u201cI feel like I still need to present myself in a certain way,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, she joined the Chloe meetup without feeling any expectation of who she had to be, a sentiment she found other participants shared.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nature of the event is that you come as you are,\u201d she said, adding that she has a new-found appreciation for her name, which she previously found \u201cbasic\u201d.<\/p>\n An event poster with the signatures of the participants, who are all named Chloe.<\/p>\n PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHLOE TAN<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n For Chloe Chan, a 20-year-old Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts student, the event was a chance to meet people from different backgrounds.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to expand my social network and go out of my comfort zone,\u201d said Chan. She attended the Aug 15 meetup, as well as the second one held on Sept 19.<\/p>\n While joining student clubs in school is an option, Chan wanted to make connections that did not revolve around a specific activity.<\/p>\n At the event, she met other Chloes in fields such as psychology, technology and social work.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more conversations you have with people who are doing completely different things, the more open-minded you become,\u201d Chan said.<\/p>\n She has made plans to meet another attendee in London, where the person is pursuing law.<\/p>\n \u201cI have to do an exchange in London next year for the degree I\u2019m taking. We agreed that if I am ever there, I would hit her up,\u201d Chan said.<\/p>\n At the second meetup on Sept 19, participants signed on the same poster in a different colour.<\/p>\n PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHLOE TAN<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n This is not the first organised meetup of people sharing the same name.<\/p>\n In the US, a series of events known as the Ryan Meetup went viral after three people named Ryan first met in New York in 2023. After the event gained traction, hundreds of people named Ryan began joining subsequent meetups.<\/p>\n It has since spawned a non-profit organisation, with the aim of breaking the world record for the largest gathering of people bearing the same first name. The current record is 2,325, set in 2017 in Bosnia and Herzegovina by attendees named Ivan.<\/p>\n Organisers Tan and Chong said they were not aware of the Ryan Meetup before they came up with the idea of a Chloe meetup.<\/p>\n Separate events \u2013 for women named Nicole \u2013 were also held here in August and September.<\/p>\n The dinner gatherings, held at a restaurant at the Esplanade, garnered over 100 sign-ups on event page Luma.<\/p>\n \u201cMeetings like these give people in Singapore more opportunities to discover the joy of meeting new people, especially introverts who don\u2019t go out of their way to make friends,\u201d Chong said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was quite flattered that somebody wanted to organise a similar event inspired by us,\u201d Tan added. \u201cPeople do want to make friends. They just need someone else to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 It started with a question: Can people make friends outside work, school and interest groups? Looking to meet new people, two friends sent…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/93006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/picture><\/div>
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\u2018They just need someone else to get started\u2019<\/h2>\n
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