This can happen with any group; church, quilt guilds, Weight Watchers, etc. I feel that it is up to a great extent to whoever is running the meeting to make sure that the new person is introduced and paired off with an old member, sort of like a hospitality chair. The group I belong to meets for 4 hours once a week; we break for lunch. Even if we don't have a project to work on, we are welcome to come and see what others are doing, stay for lunch and just chat if that's our thing for the week. Good luck on finding a group you like and feel comfortable with.