Meetup.com is a great social media tool for connecting with other people in your community. It's excellent for making friendships especially when you're new to a place.

When my husband and I began moving around to different cities, we used Meetup.com to connect with new friends. It did result in new friendships, and some that have lasted over several years.

However, there is also a darker side to Meetup.com, as with any social media networks.

The dark side includes the possibility of meeting people who are ignorant, arrogant, and flat out hateful.

In my experience so far, I have had two such experiences, and I realized that when you are networking with new people it can result in meeting people who are very opposite of who you are, and people that are not interested in being kind.

I don't want this post to be about the details of my experiences, but more about how these experiences have taught me to grow a thick skin.

I was never a very confident person growing up, I actually had mutism when I was in school, but as I faced many moments in my life meeting people who in my opinion were ignorant, inconsiderate, rude, mean, and hateful, I learned how to quickly move pass the initial shock and come back to a point where I didn't let those people veer me off of my journey in life.

I learned that people are not always thinking about others around them, or at least their priorities aren't necessarily you.

I know that sometimes we face situations where we want to argue, scream, and oppose, but what I have learned in my life is that it is better to be quiet, and learn to pick your battles.

So, networking is about accepting the fact that sometimes we will meet the good and the bad of humanity. We may find long lasting friendships, or we may end up encountering the most deplorable folks.

We do not live in a vacuum, and that sometimes these social media networks are in fact an extreme representation of the world we live in.

There will be trolls.

There will be the opposite of a troll. (Anyone know the word?)

But that doesn't change the fact of who I am, and who you are.

Just because there are a few bad experiences, it shouldn't ever stop us from creating good experiences and we shouldn't lump everyone into the same category. Rather networking is about finding the connections that works, and that are suitable to you.

So when going out there, and connecting with other people, you will find that you may in fact meet folks that aren't going to care about whether they knocked into you, but you will find folks that will turn back around and apologize for knocking into you.

So, never dwell on the dark side, but also at the same time learn to take care of that thicker skin, but do not let that define you and change you into them.