Public groups or events on FB could work but they suffer two things:
- people not invited, not involved, or random people start to get messages about the event and it becomes noise and adds to the clutter. Interactions around specific and esoteric groups, events or interests in a public forum isn't really the best way to spur real conversations.
- be yourself: post, message, comment, heart what you want in the confines of that topic, event, group. Fridge takes permissions and privacy around access to profiles, pictures out of the picture and lets you post and share what you want with exactly the right people
it all comes down to social context and not having a one size fit all hierarchy of relationships.