+1 for GeekUp - I lived in Manchester for a while and went through a bit of what you did until I discovered the thriving user group culture among the Northern G

+1 for GeekUp - I lived in Manchester for a while and went through a bit of what you did until I discovered the thriving user group culture among the Northern Geeks; some are listed on this page: http://www.manchesterdda.com/usergroups/ http://www.manchesterdda.com/usergroups/ I would very highly recommend the NW Ruby user group, even if your not a Rails dev (I'm not!), they were a really friendly bunch the couple of times I turned up. GeekUp also has a mailing list, join it! There's a lot of inane chat but also regular announcements about tech-related stuff going on in the area - that's how I got to hear Richard Stallman giving a talk at the University - and even the inane chat will help you get to know some of the personalities so it might be a bit easier to overcome that shyness when you meet them in person. Oh, and the Manchester Geek Nights organized by Thoughtworks seemed pretty good, free to attend and a good mixture of some tech talk and socializing: http://www.superdevs.com/groups/manchester-geek-nights http://www.superdevs.com/groups/manchester-geek-nights Good luck!