Noodles with Strangers in These Foolish Things

I last left off talking about how I was heading to a meetup.com event at one of my favorite noodle houses. This was going to be a first for me with the meetup group and I knew exactly ZERO people going to this event.

The RSVP list said there were going to be 15 people there, so this was going to be interesting.

I should also say that this particular noodle establishment was actually a branch of my favorite noodle house. The original started out as a super cute little stand in the hip section of downtown, a few blocks from where I used to live.

Because of the authenticity and the awesomeness of this fantastic little noodle shop, the business has since grown tremendously and now has several locations, including this location closer to The Treehouse. I’d actually never been to this one before.

I drove over and got there maybe 5 minutes early. Checked my nearly non-existent lipstick (did very minimal makeup as I’m just not used to wearing any lately), smoothed my hair and took a deep breath…

When I walked inside, there were already about 12 or 13 people with the group and they nearly attacked me when I walked in the door!

A gorgeous, tall woman with super shiny, long black hair, bright red lips and a super cute outfit (I was jealous of her mules) immediately introduced herself to me, aggressively holding her hand out to shake mine and bellowing a hearty welcome.

The place was empty except for our large group and a few people sitting at the bar, which was fine, but the venue was loft-like: a giant space with exposed pipes and some kind of metal walls, which made the acoustics extremely LOUD. Everyone was YELLING their hellos and it was a bit overwhelming.

People were moving in CLOSE so they could introduce themselves to me, and one guy even gave me a great BIG BEAR HUG as a greeting and yelled, “NOW WE KNOW EACH OTHER!”

UGH.

Clearly this group is finished with Covid.

I told the welcoming committee that I was going to run to the restroom and I practically ran so I could wash my freaking hands and then gather my wits.

When I came out of the bathroom, people were beginning to order food and sit down. This is one of those places where you order at the counter and they bring out your food when it’s ready.

I was able to steer clear of The Hugger, ordered edamame and tofu dumplings and a salad and then walked over to find a spot that seemed a little quieter at a table next to a couple of women who were already sitting.

I ended up at the very end of a table, thankfully. There was no one on my right and I engaged with three (almost four) people to my left. There were three super cool women and one super LOUD dude. I get it - you had to be loud in order to be heard, but it just seemed like the men in this group were beyond outgoing!

I really enjoyed the women.

I found out that the one sitting directly to my left was a walker (just like me - walking is one of my favorite things!) and she was actually training to WALK the Chicago Marathon next month! How cool is that? I have never really thought about walking a marathon, but why not? I mean, you can get just about as much exercise by brisk walking as you can running and it’s easier on your joints. She was full of fascinating information and I was inspired talking with her.

The other woman across from me was super cool and told me about being in product management for Microsoft and told me that even though I’m not a technical product person that I should look into it. Many of the skills are the same and their benefits package is excellent.

Anyway. We had some great chats and when we finished eating, it seemed like a big part of the group was starting to mingle around to talk with other people, but the two women I was talking with said that they were ready to leave, so I took that as a cue and decided to leave at the same time they did.

I could tell that the loudmouth guys wanted to talk more, and even the beautiful hand-shaking woman ran over to shake my hand AGAIN and thank me for coming.

I drove home with my top down (it was a beautiful evening) and a doggy bag full of dumplings.

Honestly, I’d call Noodles with Strangers a success. I went. I talked with a few people and I escaped uncomfortableness easily.

I’ll definitely do another meetup. And I’m going to look into marathon walking too!

Not bad,
GS