PORTLAND — About 15 minutes after three of us sat down at a booth in the back of the Wharf Street Yacht Club, we started getting the feeling that the others weren’t coming.

The waiter had already been by a couple of times and brought us water; it seemed rude to send him away again. So, yes, we would put in our drink order, we told him. We just had to decide if we were getting cocktails or sticking to our Damp January plans …

I knew mine was in jeopardy when I got the text at 7 a.m. Wednesday from The Maine Dinner Club informing me where I’d be eating that night. The Wharf Street Yacht Club, if you don’t know, is not a private marina but a bar, much like the others on the same cobblestone block, with a barely noticeable nautical theme.

Still, I was excited to go somewhere I hadn’t been before and relieved that it wasn’t Chipotle — I’d chosen “fast casual” for a budget preference on the questionnaire (that also asked about dietary restrictions and life philosophy) meant to match me with an optimal dining locale and four dinner mates from among the 26 people who signed up for the event.

Although other dinner clubs have been held in Portland before, this was the first one organized by Meagan Dobson as an extension of her Maine Menu Media brand, which includes the food and travel Instagram account where I saw the event series advertised.

The next dinners are Feb. 12 in Biddeford and Brunswick. Dobson hopes to continue holding them monthly, potentially in cities throughout the state, including Bangor, Augusta, Camden and Bar Harbor.

I’ll admit, I probably wouldn’t have signed up if it wasn’t something for me to write about. I would have dismissed it as an activity for people desperate for friends, but the whole truth is that I need a better reason than expanding my social circle to put myself through the anxiety leading up to what seemed like an inevitably awkward situation.

Some who signed up may have let those fears get the best of them, judging by the number of people who bailed. It could have been the slushy weather or for other legitimate reasons, but after hearing how many of my fellow attendees questioned their sanity in the hours before they met up with a group of strangers, I’m guessing there were no-shows who decided to forfeit the $15.99 upfront fee so they could stay in their comfort zone.

Not my table mates, Kristen and Patrick, who made the trek into town from Westbrook and Waterboro, respectively.

Our dinner conversation revealed that Kristen, who moved to Maine five years ago without knowing anyone, has no fear when it comes to putting herself out there. While working remotely, she had decided she was ready to leave her home city of Chicago, and Portland checked a lot of boxes for her, including its size and proximity to the ocean.

Since then, she’s met people through tennis and Zumba classes and taken them up on offers to do other activities. She has a monthly dinner date with a woman whose family she met on a trip to Canada over Thanksgiving one year.

“I can talk to a wall,” she said, and I believe it.

Patrick, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t have said a word if his wife had been there, he admitted. They moved to Maine from Oklahoma two years ago, after frequently visiting New England, where he’s a fan of the sports teams.

They hadn’t met many people yet, besides coworkers from his job as an electrician and their neighbors. When his wife asked him to sign up for The Maine Dinner Club with her, he agreed (but if it ended up being a swingers thing, they were out, she joked).

Sitting between a skilled conversationalist and a professional question-asker, Patrick wasn’t given the chance to opt out of talking, and we easily filled an hour sharing our thoughts about Maine, restaurants and the reasons we might have been matched (we’re all in our 40s and didn’t choose the high-end dining option, we figured).

While the food — sandwiches and a quesadilla — was fine, it wasn’t the focus. Our collective decision-making process to get cocktails, however, would have been a field day for a sociologist to watch.

We didn’t leave with each other’s phone numbers but agreed we would be open to participating in the dinner club again, though it might have been impolite to say otherwise. Knowing myself, I would probably need a prompt, but I’d encourage anyone who was curious to give it a try and happily go at the same time in solidarity, then meet up later.

Which brings us to the after party, where the various groups eating at restaurants around town are invited to come together at a location revealed an hour into the dinner. The organizers weren’t sure how many people would show up to Argenta Brewing Co. in Bayside, which was a little far to walk on a winter night from the Old Port locations where people were dining.

I was the only one to go from my group and, about a half-hour after the 7 p.m. start time, was still waiting for anyone else to show up. I decided to give it a little more time, knowing from Patrick texting his wife that her table was just ordering at Luke’s Lobster when we were paying the separate checks Kristen had requested upfront. (Approached this way, splitting a bill with strangers is actually much easier than with friends who have different ideas of how it should be done.)

Eventually, a woman in her 50s from New Gloucester, who had eaten with a group at Old Port Noodle House, walked in. She was followed by three more middle-aged women who came together in one car, still smiling from their dinner at DiMillo’s.

The table filled out with a man in his 20s from Scarborough, who sat next to his new acquaintance from the noodle house, and Rae Lambert, the Brunswick native living in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who founded the software platform used to do the matchmaking. Called DNNR, it’s helped launch dozens of other clubs nationwide this month, she said. Similar apps, like Timeleft, orchestrate dinners among strangers in bigger cities throughout the world.

Our table at Argenta was deep into conversation about addictive bagel shops, salsa dancing and the difficulty of making friends as an adult when a woman in her 30s came up and excitedly asked if we were with the dinner club, too.

A group of younger attendees, who had eaten at Luke’s and Union Restaurant, had been at a table right nearby. Soon, people started pulling up chairs to sit together, with new conversations quickly sparking among potential friends — for the future or just for the night.

To sign up for events being held by The Maine Dinner Club, go to mainedinnerclub.dnnr.io.