I am a solo player 99% of the time, and am usually quite happy to lurk through the game, keeping to myself. I am naturally introverted and after spending all day long dealing with co-workers, by the time I get home of an evening, I'm ready for a few hours to myself not having to socialize with anyone--I even hate to talk to my mother in the evenings!
That being said, once in a while--on the weekends, when I've had an entire Saturday to myself at home away from everyone and am feeling a little more sociable--I wonder about the group content in the game and what its like to play. It's a well known fact that using the instance finder is useless. Once in a great while, I'll join up with a group looking for players in the LFF channel, but truthfully, I've never had any good experience with that. Usually, being so randomly pulled together, there is no cohesiveness to the play style with everyone doing their own thing and running all over the place, and I've never really had much fun with it. Other times, I'll join up to help someone with a certain quest or seek help myself, but that's usually done for a short time for a specific quest.
It seems that all the raids and group work being done on this sever, especially with anyone who knows what they are doing in them, are in kinships dedicated to group content and raids, but I'm in a very small kinship and am quite happy there and am in there for a reason, so I don't have any interest in joining a "raiding" kinship. Furthermore, being naturally what my grandmother terms "anti-social" I don't want to delve into all the social demands and drama that comes from joining a large kinship; normally, I just want to solo play and be left alone to decompress after a long day at work--cause killing a few orcs of an evening does wonders for relieving my stress and reducing my annoyance at my co-workersAlso, being that I'm not a group player normally, I am not well versed in group style and therefore would be more of an hindrance to people who spend a lot of time doing skirmishes and raids.
While it's not something I want to do on a regular basis, I wouldn't mind once in a while running some of the 3 man and 6 man instances with other casual players just to learn how to do it effectively, to see what all this content is that I'm missing, and to just be casual about it--not in it for the nifty equipment or anything, but just for something new to do and to learn the mechanics of it in a relaxed atmosphere. I'm not asking for a kinship to join, but am looking for a way to perhaps once in a while set up something casual for other like-minded people either new to grouping and also interested in learning more about it or who have a lot of patience to teach others how to be better at it.
I was wondering if there was a way to set up some kind of exchange to set up such a casual group? A way to contact others who want to set up such an instance and place and time to do so? Not to form a kinship or anything, but just to get together once in a while casually and run some of the skirmishes, from the Great Barrow to Fornost to Angmar or into Moria or such?