Code of Conduct

Talk to whoever you end up next to. Let other people finish their sentences. Notice the person who has not said anything in a while and ask them something. Assume good faith about what someone meant.

You do not have to be outgoing, funny, or interesting. Turning up and being pleasant to strangers is the entire ask.

Bondfire gatherings are for meeting people, not for pairing anyone off. Do not treat a Fire as a room full of prospects, and do not come looking for one.

People do meet people, and sometimes that turns into something. The line is easy to hold: nobody at a Bondfire has opted into being approached that way, so do not put anyone in the position of having to fend you off over board games. If there is mutual interest, it will still be there when you can raise it privately, once and gracefully.

Do not pitch your business, your side hustle, your MLM, your startup, your church, your party, or your cause. No collecting contacts, no handing out anything, no “quick” asks.

Talking about what you do for a living is normal and welcome. Arriving with a plan for the room is not.

Which means none of the following, at a Fire or anywhere else:

• Comments that demean anyone for their race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, body or appearance.
• Unwanted sexual attention, sexual comments, or touching anyone without their clear go-ahead.
• Following someone, cornering them, or not leaving them alone.
• Threats, intimidation, aggression, or deliberately trying to humiliate someone.
• Pushing drinks on anyone, or pressuring anyone into anything they have declined.

If someone tells you to stop, or moves away, or goes quiet: stop. You do not get to decide whether they were being oversensitive.

If I put you in a small group, you are in a room with a few people who have not met you and cannot leave without leaving the plan. That is the one place on Bondfire where members write to each other before a gathering, so it is worth saying what it is for: settling which night works and what to do. Nothing else.

Everything else on this page applies in there exactly as it does at a table. It is not for hitting on anyone, not for selling anything, and not for working out who someone is outside Bondfire. I am in every group chat and I read them.

If a group is not for you, say so in there or email me and I will take you out of it. You do not need a reason, and nobody is told one.

After a gathering you can offer to friend anyone who was there. It only turns into a conversation if they offer back. That is the design, and it is the whole rule: if someone has not friended you back, they have answered.

Do not go looking for someone who did not want to be found. No searching for them elsewhere, no adding them on other apps, no asking another member to pass on a message, no showing up where you know they will be.

Nobody is ever told that someone passed on them. It is not a snub and it does not need a reason. People have all sorts of reasons and none of them are your business.

Ask first, every time, and take no for an answer without making it a thing. If a group photo happens, ask the group, and check before it goes anywhere online.

Do not post anyone's face, name or whereabouts without their say-so. Some people have serious reasons not to be tagged in a picture of a room full of strangers, and they should not have to explain them to you.

You will learn people's first names once a night is over, and in a small group you learn them before it. Either way that is for the people it was shared with. Do not write any of it down somewhere public, do not repeat what someone told you over a drink to anyone who was not at the table, and do not carry what was said in a group chat outside the group.

It depends on what happened. Most of the time a quiet word is the end of it, and that is genuinely how most things go.

• A word from the host. For something clumsy rather than deliberate.
• Asked to leave. On the night, without a debate about it.
• Removed from the pool. Permanently, for harassment, for anything that made someone feel unsafe, or for a pattern of smaller things.

We can remove anyone at any time without explaining why, and we will use that rather than run an investigation. Being kept comfortable matters more here than being treated fairly by a stranger you have not met yet. If that feels harsh, it is the same protection working in your favour on every other night.

We will never tell the person who was reported who reported them, unless you tell us we can.

If anything here goes wrong for you, email dan@bondfire.club. It goes to a person, not a queue.