This is sad, I hope you or someone else will start that again in another form.

I can't make it accept United States as a region despite it being the placeholder...

Try clearing the field and not putting anything in for the location. Mine defaults to United States as the region (although this might just be because my current location is the United States)

Meet and discuss with people is my favorite way. I tend to not always want to do much if I am left by myself.