I love you Dopers. So charmingly disconnected. You’ve really never heard of meetup.com? It’s been around for years…
That must make the “go ugly early” gambit all the more easy.
Taking the OP at face value:
I regularly go to meetups.
I’d say about 30-40% of people are there with the main intention of finding a girlfriend / boyfriend (or maybe a one-night stand). And that’s fine.
However, a significant proportion of the guys with this intention, are too blatant, too needy, and you can spot them a mile off.
They only want to talk to the hot girls, and they are kinda rude to everyone else. Once they’re talking to someone hot, they latch on to them, and never want the conversation to end. And the conversation itself is usually either the guy trying to impress her with stories about himself, or pretending to find everything the girl is saying fascinating.
This may seem a different problem to what the OP is saying, but I think it’s related. Seeing it as ‘I must “get” lots of girls’ or ‘I must be more assertive’ are the wrong way to look at things. It’s more accurate to see it as “If I’m social, and don’t act like a douche, good things will happen”.
Just talk to people, as many people as you can, at the meetups. Don’t latch on to anyone. Pay attention to everything people say to you, but don’t be afraid to change the subject if the conversation’s moribund.
I honestly have never heard of a meetup, but the way you describe it sounds like it would be a fun idea. To get together with like-minded people, or others that share your hobbies or interests would be nice.
It sounds like a CraigList kind of thing. I wonder if it is run like CraigsList, or if you need to Google to find them in your area (which I am not going to try because I am easily distracted and need to get some work done).
I wonder if they have meetups for kids, I have two girls with different interests.
Yes, I have been out of the loop of what is new in current affairs. Long, sad, story, that I will spare you.
When I have time I think I might look around for more info on this. 
I think the OP might have more success if he just holds up a sign: “I’m feeling sorry for myself. Anyone up for a pity fuck?”
Some of us don’t need it.
When I was in college, back when MIT was only 15% female, we had mixers which sound like the same thing but with dancing. Even feeble old me met girls there, but guys who never went up to a woman didn’t do very well.
I’d “never” heard of it until recently when an event I went to used it to RSVP. Even still, I assumed it was pretty much what I used it for and wouldn’t have guessed that it was primarily used for trawling for dates. Of course I’m married so my date-trawling days are behind it.
It’s entirely possible that I had “heard” of it prior but it went right under my radar since it wasn’t anything I was concerned with.
It’s a good thing I met someone through WoW. Otherwise I’d’ve been single forever.
My suggestion is find a meetup with something you love to do, try different groups and different activities. If one group is not working don’t go back (or at least not for a while). Find where you fit in and are accepted, then become a regular to those groups. At that point dating options may start opening up.
Some meetup groups are about meeting other singles. IMO, the majority are not; they are for engaging in whatever activity is sponsored by the group. The ones I’ve used are for hiking and skiing, and the trips have all been about hiking and skiing.
Yep - it’s sometimes easier to join a group that’s interested in hiking than trying to find my friends that would like to hike. The added bonus is that with a large enough group you can usually get sub groups so some could go out and tackle something challenging while others can saunter along and enjoy the scenery.
Meetup isn’t designed specifically for singles, it’s designed to get people together who share common interests. Do you like wine? There’s a meetup for that. Do you want to meet people with the same dog breed as you at a local dog park? There’s a meetup for that too. Do you want to find a dark sky site and look through a telescope? Those are all meetups that meet close to my house.
Of course singles go too - it’s a great way to meet people with common interests. I wouldn’t consider it a pickup site per se, but if you have decent social skills then it’s as good a way to meet people as any other.
I ride my own white horse, thank you. And a lot better than most men. 
Maybe you’re riding the wrong men.
I have a meetup account. I don’t go to the events often, but I have been to a few. I went to a few djembe classes (fun!) I went on a guided hike, it was fun and Interesting. I learned a lot about trees and forest management. I don’t go to pickup anyone, but just as an excuse to get out of the house.
This is true, but the chicks just end of in bed with the horses. I know this from watching old Dudley Do-Right episodes.
Time to type that post, but not to type the word “meetup” into Google?
I have been an organiser on Meetup for years, you want to know what type of member annoys me the most? Its the guy that writes in his profile, “I’m shy, but I can be really nice if you get too know me”.
Over time that phrase has come to really push my buttons. What it really means is “I want you to do all the work! I am going to stand here in my corner and I want you to come over to me and make all the effort to draw me out, it’ll be worth it I promise”.
Not everybody is like that, most people who go to the effort of attending a Meetup will also make the effort to socialise and talk to people, thats why they are there after all. But there are still those like the totally not trolling OP that don’t want to put the work in, that won’t make any effort to engage with other people and who then go home wondering why they are so lonely.
I’ve banned other for trolling, so I’m closing this thread.