Today we’d like to introduce you to Lloyd Vliet.
Lloyd, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
In 2021, I started Gay Social. The seed of it was a long-running community event in Somerville that had been going for over a decade. Coming out of the pandemic, people were hungry for in-person connection. When Kellen May, who had been running that event for years, relocated to Alaska, he handed me the keys to his audience. I’m grateful for that. At the same time, I launched a coffee social at Scout’s Coffee Bar in High Bridge, and Pat Coyle was starting a mixer at Clydz in New Brunswick. We merged it all together and Gay Social was born.
The early days were scrappy as this was a side project for me. My full time profession is B2B marketing in the technology sector. Having no pressure, no budget, and the freedom to just figure it out made the beginnings of Gay Social really fun. We started by building the brand, growing the audience county by county, and finding the right venues. What I didn’t expect was how much my two worlds would feed each other: being resourceful with Gay Social sharpened skills I brought back to my day job, and everything I knew professionally made Gay Social better. It took time to get traction but it never felt like work.
In 2024, I did the work to officially incorporate as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, formed a board of six, and put a leadership team in place. Gay Social is centered around intentional in-person community building for the full LGBTQ+ community across New Jersey. Every event is staffed by a Community Manager whose job is to make sure nobody who walks in alone leaves that way. With a team behind it, we could move faster and farther. Last year we ran 87 events across 11 New Jersey counties, from coffee socials and mixers to book clubs, hikes, and axe throwing. We estimate approximately 5,000 people are engaged in the community now. In a state where you can be accepted everywhere and still not know another queer person in your town, we see the value and impact of our community building as we continue to grow.
The feedback I hear from people is what drives me to continue building Gay Social. Our community members often share that before they found us, they genuinely struggled to make LGBTQ+ friends. We hear time and time again that apps make it feel impossible, that the city is too far, and that building close friendships with people in Philly or New York when you live in the suburbs often doesn’t work logistically. That’s the problem Gay Social solves. And it’s the reason I’m still doing this.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Honestly, I’m entrepreneurial by nature so I was able to navigate most of it. But it was complicated in ways I didn’t fully anticipate.
The hardest part was making sure people didn’t feel alone, both operationally and emotionally. When you’re building a community, you feel responsible for people’s experience. Early on we got feedback that some events felt cliquey and difficult to make connections. Trying to understand the issue better, it turned out it wasn’t ‘cliquey’ intentionally. It was just two introverts in the same room who both needed someone to make the first move. Neither of them was going to do it on their own. That feedback is actually what led us to create our Community Manager program. Every event now has a dedicated person whose job is to make sure nobody gets lost in the room. It solved a real problem and became one of the things we’re most known for.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Gay Social is an LGBTQ+ community builder. We create the conditions for real friendships to form, in-person, across New Jersey, in the places where people actually live.
There’s no shortage of LGBTQ+ community organizations doing important work in New Jersey. Advocacy, health resources, political organizing, it all matters. But the purely social side of community building, a dedicated space just to meet people and make friends, is something that’s often missing. That’s the gap Gay Social was built to fill.
We’re not a membership organization. There’s no sign-up, no dues… we try to keep a low barrier to entry. Most events are free or low cost, and when tickets are involved we do our best to negotiate to keep prices accessible. We’re intentional about venues too. You’re not going to find us in a church basement or a hotel conference room. We find spaces that are ‘vibey,’ fun, and worth showing up for.
We cover a wide range of formats and the variety is intentional. Different events attract different people and the more ways we show up across New Jersey, the more people find where they fit.
We’ve created an environment that’s friendly, accessible, and genuinely fun. That doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built into how we run every single event.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
The need for what Gay Social does is only going to grow.
We’re in the middle of a loneliness epidemic that isn’t going away. People are more digitally connected than ever and more socially isolated than ever at the same time. Apps and social media were supposed to make it easier to meet people. For a lot of folks, they’ve made it harder. The pressure of a perfect profile, the paradox of endless options, the fact that you can have 500 followers and still not have a single person to grab coffee with are constant challenges. Real in-person community is the antidote to that and I think more people are starting to feel it.
New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country. There are LGBTQ+ people in every single county, in every kind of town. Having to travel to New York or Philadelphia to find your community when you have thousands of queer people living right around you shouldn’t be the only option. The community is already here. Gay Social is just making it visible.
The political climate is also a factor. When things feel uncertain, the risk is that people pull inward and become more isolated. That’s exactly when community matters most. Gay Social exists to make sure that doesn’t happen, that our community stays connected and has a place to show up for each other regardless of what’s going on outside.
And, the way people socialize is shifting too. The sober and sober-curious movement is a real phenomenon. People want social options that don’t always revolve around a bar. Gay Social has always offered that variety and I think it’s going to matter more over the next decade.
All of these factors point in the same direction. The organizations that figure out how to build genuine in-person community, not just individual events, are going to be the ones that matter.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gaysocialnj.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gay___social
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gaysocialnj/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gaysocialnj
