I went to a different meetup last week, it's generally made up of professional middle aged and upwards (though not exclusively) like myself, it was just a group walk but found this much better as I had been to this group before so saw some familiar faces and talked to some new people too. It's a lot easier when you can move around and if talking gets too much can just hang back and look around at things.
They also have other activities such as meals, discussion groups and whatnot so it looks like it could be the group for me to focus on...
Feeling in a much more positive place than when I wrote this thread, the replies at the time meant so much to me so thank you all at ALL!