"My Ex was a Red Flag, so was I (sometimes)" Meetup Recap [6th September, 26 | ONLINE]

I hosted a online meetup about exes, heartbreak and red flags. Somehow, nobody cried!

We did, however, had to stop a Ross & Rachel debate in the middle of the meetup

And honestly, I consider that a win 😂

Last Sunday on 6th Sept, I organised a women-only online meetup around:

“My ex was a red flag and so was I (sometimes)”

I'd actually done something similar offline in March. Recap post here : https://twox.in/post/1nfM-The-story-of-my-ex-your-ex-and-also-her-ex-Mee

It was a good meetup, but it was also intense.

There was a lot of talking about painful experiences, a lot of processing, and a lot of crying. Including me 🥲

So this time, I wanted to do it differently

Whether I'm doing a meetup online or offline, I don't want it to become a two-hour sob story or a group venting session.

I wanted us to be able to talk about breakups, heartbreak, bad decisions and red flags and actually laugh about them

And we absolutely did.

I had a bunch of prompts prepared and divided the meetup into six sections:

1.Introductions

Just getting comfortable and figuring out who everyone was.

2.Their red flags

Because obviously we had to discuss the questionable decisions made by our exes 😂

3.Our red flags

This one was slightly more difficult.

It's very easy to make a list of everything your ex did wrong.

It's considerably harder to admit that sometimes you were also the problem.

4.“Diagnose me”

Why are some of us still single?

What patterns do we keep repeating?

What questionable decisions are we making that we haven't noticed yet?

5.Green flags

This was especially interesting because, unlike my previous meetup, this group wasn't made up entirely of single women.

We had women who were single, women in relationships and married women.

So the women who were happily partnered got to tell us what their partners actually do that makes them think, “Yep, I picked a good one.”

6.The heartbreak that still affects us + what we won in love

We talked about the experiences that stayed with us, the ones that changed us, and then ended by looking at what we actually gained from everything we'd been through.

Because not every relationship ending means you lost.

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Now one thing I've realised after doing 16 meetups is that the structure matters a lot.

I didn't want this to feel like everyone sitting in a circle waiting for their turn to give a ten-minute speech about their deepest heartbreak.

That can very quickly start feeling like group therapy.
(And I'm completely okay with that too, since a lot of my earlier meetups have gone that way)

So instead, I used shorter, fun prompts and let the conversation move around naturally.

And watching that transition happen is probably my favourite part of hosting these.

At the beginning, I'll ask a question and everyone suddenly does that little sideways head tilt while staring into space trying to think of an answer.

You know the pose.

The universal “hmm, let me search the archives of my terrible life decisions” pose 😂

And because I already knew all the questions, sometimes I'd just go:

“Okay, I'll answer this one first with my story and then you guys can tell yours.”

And that seemed to make people much more comfortable sharing.

Because once one person starts, suddenly everyone has a story.

At one point, we somehow ended up debating whether Ross and Rachel were actually on a break

It had absolutely nothing to do with the meetup topic.

But suddenly we had people defending Ross, people defending Rachel, and an entirely unnecessary courtroom proceeding about the relationship history of two fictional people 😂

I eventually had to stop everyone because we were going completely off track and I still had questions to get through.

Otherwise we'd probably still be there arguing about Friends.

And honestly, I took that as a good sign.

Because that's exactly what I wanted this meetup to become.

Not a structured therapy session.

Not a room full of strangers nervously waiting for their turn.

Just a bunch of women who started off not knowing each other and, after a little while, became comfortable enough to randomly argue about Ross and Rachel.

This was my 16th meetup overall and my 2nd online meetup.

And I think I'm finally realising something.

Women don't necessarily need some elaborate activity or perfect icebreaker to connect.

Sometimes they just need a community, a little structure, and a reason to talk

Most of the women who joined this meetup hadn't attended one of my previous meetups.

Only one had previously come to an offline meetup.

A lot of them specifically chose the online format because it was easier to join.

And also because, as one person basically put it, if the vibes didn't match, it would be easier to leave 😂

But little do most people know that the vibes almost always match.

The first 10-15 minutes are usually the awkward part.

Nobody knows anybody.

Everyone is figuring out who is going to speak first.

And then suddenly someone shares something personal.

Someone else relates. Someone laughs.

And before you know it, complete strangers are talking like they've known each other for much longer.

That's probably my biggest takeaway from doing all these meetups.

I've also learnt that even if you're doing the same kind of meetup, you can't just copy-paste the format.

Online needed a different structure.

I had to change things depending on the audience, adjust questions on the fly, and even completely drop one section because we were running short on time.

There was another section I'd planned to do, but the conversation was going so well that I didn't want to suddenly throw everyone into a heavier round just because it was written in my notes.

So I skipped it.

And that's something I've learnt from hosting these:

The plan is there to help you. It isn't there to control the meetup.

You have to pay attention to the people actually sitting in front of you.

Or, in this case, the people sitting in little squares on a screen 😂

The meetup was supposed to be 8–10 PM.

It ended at 11 PM.

No biggie 😂

And I think I'm going to experiment with doing more online meetups from here.

I still prefer offline ones.

There's something about sitting across from actual people that an online call can't completely replicate.

But online has one huge advantage:

I can reach women who otherwise wouldn't be able to make it.

And more importantly, women who join online can also find each other.

So I think I'll be doing more of these.

I might actually take a little break from the offline ones for now.

Because after 16 meetups, I've realised I've given up a lot of weekends to organise these.

And I'm a little burnt out 😭

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Which brings me to another thing.

I'd genuinely love to see other women host their own.
That's what twoxtopia was made for!

If you've ever thought about organising a women-only meetup but had no idea where to start, I'd be happy to help and twoxtopia will help you promote it!

After 16 meetups, I've learnt a ridiculous amount about what works, what doesn't, what I've completely messed up, how to structure things, how to deal with awkward beginnings, how to keep conversations moving, and how to improvise when your carefully planned agenda goes out the window 😂

I don't want twoxtopia to be something where I'm the only person constantly organising meetups.

I'd much rather see more women create their own little communities and gatherings.

I'll make a separate post about this because I genuinely want to help more women do it themselves.

For now, I'm curious:

Would you attend more online women-only meetups?

Would you ever want to host one yourself?

And would you want me to repeat this particular topic?

I probably wouldn't repeat it immediately because I think part of what makes these meetups work is that I genuinely enjoy being part of the conversation myself.

And I like keeping the topics fresh instead of doing the same thing back-to-back.

But if enough people want this one again maybe I'll think about it 👀

Either way, 16 meetups in, I'm still learning.

And apparently I'm still not tired enough to stop doing this 😂