If your name is Ryan, have I got a party for you!
Last weekend, hundreds of people packed into a bar in Lower Manhattan for a very exclusive get together. “First name must be Ryan,” the flier for the event said. “No Bryans allowed.” Also, no Ryne or Ryanns or anything close. Just Ryan.
To gain entry, you had to prove it by showing your ID to one of two doormen. Would you like to guess their names? Yes, they were too: Ryan Cousins and Ryan Le.
The party was held at Ryan Maguire’s Bar & Restaurant and all the guests were wearing identical name tags. No need to specify what they said.
Ryan Maguire, the pub owner’s son, now 34, has clear recollections about his early years: “The thing about being a Ryan growing up is there was always another Ryan around.”
The Ryan get togethers were a brainchild of Ryan Rose, 26, a photographer in Brooklyn, who first started the Ryan Meetup, a monthly event, in February; but she wasn’t entirely satisfied with how it turned out. She was looking for something more personal and gratifying. She says, “They were fun, but I still wanted something more for myself. I never found my clique.”
Then one day over the winter, she created the Ryan party flier. “It just seemed like the next thing I could try,” she said. She distributed 20 of them throughout Bushwick, where she used to live, and posted her idea on Meetup.com.
Only two people — the bouncers — showed up for the inaugural get-together in February, but the three Ryans bonded immediately. “In a cosmic way, we were just connected,” Ms. Rose said. “We started texting every day.”
They decided to try another meetup in March. This time they distributed over 500 fliers in Brooklyn, Manhattan and beyond. “I put them up near the White House in D.C.,” Ms. Rose said. “I put them up at a Waffle House in Myrtle Beach. I even put some up at South by Southwest in Austin.”
That invitation went viral.
The meetup came along at the perfect time for the Ryans of New York City and the greater East Coast. Many of them said they had been looking for a sense of community in the post-pandemic reboot and they wanted to socialize again.
“I generally tend not to be very social or outspoken, but it’s so easy to be here,” Mr. Solomon said. “There is this weird kinship.”
Ryan Minnifield, 38, an office manager for a construction company, took the train an hour and a half from Massapequa, on Long Island, specifically to find other female Ryans.
“I got made fun of growing up because people assumed I was a boy, but it hasn’t gotten easier as an adult,” Ms. Minnifield said. “Like even the Verizon person on the phone will make the weirdest comments and ask me stuff like if I was born a boy.”
She nodded to the other meetup attendees. “This is probably the most female Ryans I’ve ever met,” she said. “I love them all already. It’s like they have a vibe. They understand me.”
The flier for the meetup also promised to address “BIG and IMPORTANT Ryan Topics.” No idea what these might be.
Ryans looking to expand their networks were pleasantly surprised by the diversity of the crowd.
“So many different types of people are going to be here, because the only thing they have in common is their name,” said Ryan Fuchs, who lives in Stony Brook, N.Y., and works in ophthalmology.
“A gathering where we all just have our name in common — it’s the most random, obscure, silly thing,” he said. “I mean, we are all wearing the exact same name tag. What more can you ask for?”
Ryan Rose is now satisfied with her brainchild. But there is always more to achieve in the world of Ryans: “My ultimate dream is to have a giant Ryan convention…I just want all the Ryans to be together.”
