Milan is a city that never stops: an exhibition, a concert, an impromptu aperitivo, an evening with strangers who are already in your contacts the next day. On paper, it is the perfect city for building an amazing social life. Yet there is one sentence you often hear among students living away from home: “I know lots of people, but I still haven't found my group.” How is that possible in a city that offers so many opportunities to meet people?
The point is that meeting people and finding your people are not the same thing. In Milan, groups often form very quickly. The first weeks of university are a constant series of encounters: people met in class, in chats, at a party, or over an aperitivo. Those who immediately find the right combination can end up in a group before the academic year has truly begun. Anyone who takes a little longer to settle in may feel as though they arrived late. Not because the opportunities have run out, but because the groups already seem to have formed and, at that point, taking the first step can become harder.
We do not all socialize in the same way
Some people walk into an evening full of strangers and are already talking to everyone after five minutes. Others feel more anxious about going to an event alone than about sitting an exam. It does not mean being more or less sociable, nor is it simply a question of being extroverted or introverted. Sometimes it means needing a different setting to feel comfortable taking the first step.
We are social animals: we need relationships, discussion, and opportunities to meet people who may be different from us. But we do not all seek those connections in the same way, and everyone may need different approaches and settings to find them. The right setting can change everything, and that is exactly where the idea for Zonus comes from. The app has an events section designed for students. We want events to be the excuse that makes it easier to start a conversation, discover a shared passion, or meet someone you would never have met in another setting.
Our motto is “Together, we grow”
Because university is not only about lectures, exams, and books. It is also perhaps the time when we grow most as individuals, finding our independence, learning to navigate a new city, building relationships, and engaging with others. Like everything else, in the end you learn it by doing. Events on Zonus are different because there is no single way to socialize. You can find dinners with strangers, evenings tied to specific communities, language exchanges, meetups between students from different universities, music nights, chess tournaments, talks, and much more. Some events are organized by Zonus partners, while on other occasions you can create an event yourself and propose it to the community. We, for example, came up with MBTI evenings, a format of our own.
You can choose to meet people of your own type: a room full of INFJs who, at last, do not have to explain why they need a little quiet after two hours. Or you can do the opposite and throw yourself in among people whose types are completely different from yours, to discover how someone whose brain seems wired in the opposite way thinks.
In both cases, you already have a small starting point: you know something about the person in front of you before you even start talking. Using Zonus is simple: find an event, save it to your favorites, and receive a notification as it approaches. You can book directly in the app and, when an event has a fee, buy the ticket directly from your phone.
Because we think that sometimes all it really takes is an event, a stranger, and a setting that makes it a little easier to say “hi” to make new friends.
To sum up: Milan is full of people to meet. Zonus wants to help you find yours.