I have been on Reddit for three years now. I only went there because I heard it was a big place and I wanted to check it out for the hell of it. The main reason why I stuck around Reddit for as long as I have is because of meetups in New Jersey. I was about 23 or 24 when I first joined and I was looking to meet new people. I wasn't really looking for profound discussion when I joined Reddit. As I started to know the site, I saw that a lot of discussions really went nowhere as both sides of an argument could be really nasty. So I wanted no part of it. I was used to message board arguments and saw most arguments as pointless because no one really learned anything from them. All they did was shout at each other and I saw it as a waste of time. Since I was never really ingrained in the Reddit Community, I have never developed any Reddit argument traits.
Meetups. Ohh meetups. I never got to see any except for that single time that a bunch of redditors went to meet the frisbee guy. It was kinda funny and cool how they kinda made his day meeting him and stuff, but IMO reddit meetups are way too big. You'd see a hundred people and never know any of them. Hell, some of them might not even be from reddit. They might be there just because other people were congregating there. But I don't know a whole lot about meetups, so tell me if I'm wrong. If Hubski had a meetup I'd go. Because Hubski is out of Michigan, I'd be able to get there easily. Assuming it's in Michigan.
NYC meetups can be pretty big but the ones I went to in New Jersey weren't as big. The biggest meetup I went to had 50 people but most meetups are around 15-25 people. I do agree that sometimes you don't really get to know everybody but it's still a fun way to meet people.