Six ways of being in a group

Your avatar is a way in, not a label

The questionnaire gives each of you one of these six. It exists so that the first conversation of the evening has somewhere to start, and so that every plan has people like you and people nothing like you.

Where it comes from

Twenty-five questions and six scales

You don't choose your avatar: it comes out of the 25 questions in the questionnaire, six minutes on how you are around other people. Whether you say yes before checking the route, whether you notice the person who has gone quiet.

Your answers place you on six scales, and your avatar is the one where you stand furthest from the middle. The second becomes your secondary avatar, because nobody is one thing on a Tuesday and the same on a Saturday. Everyone answers separately, and until all of you have done it, the group can't book.

EXP · Openness to the new

SOC · Social energy

PRO · Depth

CUI · Care for the group

EST · Need for firm ground

HUM · Humour and lightness

What it's actually for

Two jobs, and only two

The first is to break the ice. Three or four groups meet at a SAL plan, and someone always has to say the first sentence. Asking a stranger why they came out as The Compass, or telling them you got The Spark and you aren't sure you agree, is a far better opening than the weather or what anyone does for a living. Ten minutes later nobody remembers the avatars exist, which is exactly the point.

The second is the mix. When we decide which groups share a plan, the avatars let us see at a glance whether the evening has contrast: someone who opens the conversation, someone who takes it deeper, someone who notices the person going quiet. What we want is for you to find people who are like you — easy, comfortable, you recognise each other straight away — and people who are nothing like you, who are usually the ones who end up giving you something you weren't expecting.

That's the whole of it. Your avatar doesn't classify you, doesn't put you in a category we treat differently, doesn't appear on any public profile and isn't a psychological test. It's a working tool, and an honest one: a way of guessing, before the evening starts, who's going to make the group click.

Close-up of a small golden lighthouse pin on a navy jacket lapel, worn at a SAL gathering.

The six

Six ways of being in a group

Your avatar doesn't define you or file you away. It does two things: it keeps the first conversation from starting with the weather, and it makes sure every plan has people like you and people nothing like you.

The Sail

Tell me where, and we'll see what happens.

Some people need to know everything before they leave the house. Not you. You're up for the winery nobody's heard of, the band you've never listened to, the terrace somebody only found last week. By now you've learned that the nights worth remembering are the ones that go off script, and it rubs off: groups with you in them are braver than they'd be on their own.

In a SAL group

You're the one who suggests the plan nobody had thought of.
You ask for the long story, not the headline.
Doing the same night twice bores you senseless.

Its axis: Openness to the new.

Your blind spot: Now and again you're already off towards the next discovery before you've enjoyed the one in front of you.

In a group you work very well with: The Compass, The Garden and The Bridge.

The Compass

Tell me the plan and I'll be there.

You'd take a well-planned night over a chaotic one, and once the shape of it is settled you're one of the people enjoying it most. In the group chat that's forty messages deep and still hasn't decided anything, you're the one who writes «Thursday at eight, does that work?» and unblocks the lot. You turn up on time, you do what you said you'd do, and people notice even if they never say so.

In a SAL group

You put a date on it when nobody else will.
You arrive when you said you'd arrive.
You like things done the way they were agreed.

Its axis: Need for firm ground.

Your blind spot: Every so often it's worth letting the night decide for you.

In a group you work very well with: The Sail, The Spark and The Garden.

The Lighthouse

Nobody gets left out of the conversation.

You notice the person who's been quiet for ten minutes, the joke that didn't land, and the exact moment to change the subject. You don't do it to look good — you do it because you genuinely care how the people around you are feeling. Groups with you in them are groups where everybody talks, and that's rarer and more valuable than it sounds.

In a SAL group

You ask the question that brings back whoever was drifting out.
You steer things back when a conversation gets tense.
People tell you things they hadn't planned to tell anyone.

Its axis: Care for the group.

Your blind spot: Looking after everyone else can make you forget to ask what you fancy doing that night.

In a group you work very well with: The Spark, The Garden and The Sail.

The Garden

The good things take a little while to grow.

You can spend two hours with one person and come away knowing things it takes others a year to find out. You actually listen, you ask what other people won't, and you're in no hurry to fill a silence. Conversations with you don't start big: they start slowly and end up somewhere hardly anyone gets to.

In a SAL group

You ask the question that lifts the whole conversation.
You remember what somebody told you three weeks ago.
Silence doesn't bother you — you use it.

Its axis: Depth.

Your blind spot: Not every night has to go deep. Sometimes a good laugh is plenty.

In a group you work very well with: The Spark, The Bridge and The Sail.

The Spark

If we laugh, the night's already worth it.

You have a gift for taking the weight out of something without taking the truth out of it. You break the ice by minute two and everyone else breathes out. Solemnity bores you, and you can tell straight away when a room has gone too serious. It's not that you don't take things seriously — it's that you worked out long ago that people open up faster when they're laughing.

In a SAL group

You break the first awkward silence.
You get very different people to relax at the same time.
You leave with plans for next week.

Its axis: Humour and lightness.

Your blind spot: Humour can be a closed door too. Sometimes it's worth letting somebody through it.

In a group you work very well with: The Garden, The Compass and The Lighthouse.

The Bridge

Hang on, you two need to meet.

You move between groups with an ease other people find close to witchcraft. You remember that one of them sails and that the other has always wanted to learn, and you get them talking. You're not collecting contacts — you're building bridges, and then stepping aside so people can cross on their own. Half of Palma knows the other half thanks to somebody like you.

In a SAL group

You introduce whoever's just arrived and hand them something to start on.
You remember who does what, and who'd want to hear about it.
Two groups who arrived separately end up as one.

Its axis: Social energy.

Your blind spot: From connecting everyone else, you sometimes end up without a conversation of your own.

In a group you work very well with: The Garden, The Lighthouse and The Compass.

None of the six is better than the others and none of them is a diagnosis. A group of 3 to 6 friends usually comes out with three or four different avatars, and that's the normal thing: you have been putting up with each other for years precisely because you aren't all the same.

If you read one of them and think it sounds nothing like you, take the questionnaire and see. Most people are surprised by the one they get, and the arguments about it in the group chat are half the fun.

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