They hook up at Thomas Square and the Pet Expo, a church in Mo'ili'ili and Moanalua Gardens, but they all make first contact over the Internet.

Military wives and Wahiawa witches, Spider-Man fans and real-estate investors find other Islanders with common interests on the popular networking Web site Meetup.com.

Gone are the days of anonymous conversations in online chat rooms and message boards. That's so 1996. Nowadays people use the Internet to make real-life, in-person connections.

Unlike the stereotypical cyberspace lurkers of the 20th century, these people go online specifically to find people who want to get together in real life. They knit, cook, golf, ride motorcycles and do role-playing. They form support groups and networking groups, moms clubs and fan clubs. Whether atheist or expatriate, a stay-at-home mom or a gay professional, others with similar concerns are just a click away.

"Meetup gave us the vehicle to meet similar people and be able to reach out," said Dawn Kim, organizer of the Honolulu Pug Meetup Group.

When Kim and her husband joined the group in 2004, about 12 pug owners got together on a regular basis. Now more than 200 pug owners are on the meetup group's membership roster.

"It can be a difficult breed to manage, so for us Meetup has given us access to resources — and it's just nice social time with each other," Kim said.

The pug owners hold monthly meetings with an average of 40 in attendance. On May 12, the owners and their furry friends gathered at Thomas Square and marched across the street to the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall for the Pet Expo.

And pugophiles aren't the only ones in Honolulu using Meet up.com.

Leslie Ashburn, a personal chef specializing in macrobiotic cooking, moved to Honolulu from Japan in February and wanted to meet other vegans like herself.

"I wanted to have a community of people who were interested in the same diet and lifestyle that I was into," Ashburn said. "I had heard about Meetup because my friend in Tokyo was doing the same thing there. I wanted to see if there was anything in Honolulu, and there wasn't."

Ashburn organized online Meetup groups — the Honolulu Vegan Meetup Group and the Honolulu Macrobiotic Meetup Group — which now have a combined membership of more than 60 people. The groups, which have become sort of vegetarian support groups, meet for monthly dinners at the Church of the Crossroads.

There are more than 22,000 Meetup groups worldwide with roughly 3 million members and about 3,500 umbrella interest areas, ranging from alternative health to work and career.

"Our mission is for there to be a Meetup everywhere about almost everything," Meetup.com spokesman Andres Glusman said.

The site makes most of its money by charging organizers a fee to run groups. If organizers want to charge admission to recoup the cost, they can do so, but many do not.

Meetup is "a new way of doing a very old thing," Glusman said.

Many people exercise extreme caution when using the Internet for social purposes, especially in light of reports of real-life crimes stemming from the use of Web sites. But Ashburn, organizer of the local vegan Meetup, said her group's site doesn't tend to attract people with nefarious intentions.

"I had no doubt that Meetup was a great way to create a community," Ashburn said.

Ashburn charges $12 for vegetarian meals that are served at her Meetup, which she thinks helps to cut back on any sketchy characters from joining in.

Leslie Shimizu, who recently moved to Honolulu from Houston, started the Honolulu Stay At Home Moms Meetup Group to make new friends. She said she's never really been concerned about using the Internet to create her social networking group.

"It seemed really comfortable. It was friendly, and there were a lot of people doing the same thing all over the country," said Shimizu.

Membership has grown since she began the group in December, from about 10 to 42 members.

As with most Meetup groups, Shimizu said many members join but never participate in the group's activities, such as visits to the zoo, story time at public libraries or lunch picnics.

"There's a regular group that comes out, with a few that come now and again. But there are some that have joined but have never come out," Shimizu said. "The ones that don't come out, I'm not sure why they don't. For some people, I think, they want to go out, but there is this fear of meeting other people."

Part of it could also be the nature of her group, she said.

"As moms," she said, laughing, "we're always busy."

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.