Hi, Dazed
As said, if only 3 have signed up for your location you can still go to it, and who knows, maybe one or two of the other two persons might also happen to show up, or maybe not. So don't be disappointed if you did get there and find yourself alone, and note that one easy way around that possibility is to invite some other person or persons to go with you. No law says they have to have been JWs, though that's nice.
Now as to some elder you don't care for just possibly (even deliberately) being there, though that's unlikely, you can do one of several things. One is to send a friend by to see if that person is or isn't at the meet-up location. If he is, don't go. Or just walk past there and glance to see if he is in which case keep on walking. If you know what his car looks like, look for it out on the parking lot and just drive on past if it's there.
See. Easily taken care of. Also in time the number signing for per location should increase in some places although perhaps also vanish at others. If you're an "ex" JW if an elder is there, then so what. He couldn't bother you but you could point him out real fast. Right?!
It's pretty easy to predict that friendly meet-ups of exJWs who enjoy getting together regardless of what their beliefs may or may not be will grow pretty fast in California and New York with little effort. Unity by love/friendship/enjoying each other's company is 100% possible rather than insisting as the Watchtower has that everyone must express uniform beliefs even when they don't really believe the same. That's real spiritual dictatorship, Babylonish, being a real cult.
In other places outside the East and West Coasts the advertising of the meet-ups may need to be boosted a bit more by putting up flyers on bulletin board laundrymats etc. It's a great idea with great promise. Some of the groups may want to help people like "Shunned Father" who has been literally crucified by the Watchtower bloodsuckers or do some other good things.
Others may simply serve to lend each other a friendly ear or two. What some call healing. There are different needs among different people. Those getting together can figure out their own greatest needs.
If anyone worries that In some instances the WTS might send in a mole or two, as you have suggested, who can cause fights or otherwise try to destroy a group, well, I doubt it but if so then note that it definitely won't happen to all and probably not to most. Why? Because the others at the meet-up will see right through such jerks, and besides the groups are decentralized. This means they can't be bossed around by anyone person or little clique over them all.
Will the groups all become religious, be atheist or just what? Also predictably, while some may add a little prayer when they meet, most will probably be or become just informal SOCIAL groups for drinking soda pop and chit-chatting. Maybe for fun activities like bowling and camping. A few might be far out and just attended by atheists or become a club for motorcycle bikers. But most likely many will turn out as a mixture of those possibilities.
Why? Because they are a mixture of persons. Which is fine. Whether you credit God or not the fact is that no all flowers are the same color or fragrance, so by the laws of nature or God variety is good.
Meanwhile, why put mental stumbling blocks in the middle of the road when they don't really even exist? And if there are real stumbling blocks, well, then people can always find ways to step around those like those that were suggested above. The Watchtower Society cannot stop us from having fun anymore.
They had better be worrying about their own worsening predicaments. If not their own demise will happen all the faster. Love not tyranny builds up. So relax, and simply do as your sense of logic says is best for your own situation, to go or not to go.
True Christian freedom means "you," not any of us reading this, are to make such big decisions. No need to be Dazed or Confused about that, is there?
