Tabletop gaming and regular movie nights for my friends at my house keeps my circle together.
Tabletop gaming is good. I like the crazy verbal ones like Cards Against Humanity or Rappakalja (which is called Balderdash in English accordign to Wikipedia), but something like Catan will also do.
Yesterday we went to the cinema in a local art deco cinema, that was pretty cool actually. They had couches in the back. The newest Jodie Foster movie of all things.
There’s the local requirement though. I have zero contact to anybody from my youth, I moved, they moved. My friends now are much more recent.
We do DnD mainly. Some times we break out the MTG decks.
“It’s so hard to make friends”
“What are your neighbors like?”
“Idk, I’ve never talked to them”
I usually maxed out at one person at a time anyway, so finding a spouse fit my life quite easily. Which, incidentally, has mostly exempt me from this scenario.
However the random requirement to socialize with other people’s spouses and other couples due to children… Well, that’s necessity. Like work.
I am friendly and socialable at work, which ends everyday at the agreed upon time. That doesn’t keep me up at night.
goddamn bro, why do you got to come at me like that
I’m grateful to have a group of friends that have all stayed in touch since elementary school. Discord has been a huge part of being able to stay friends as well have all gotten older. It’s become our third space, there is almost always someone in the chat every night so we can drop in chat and catch up, people come and go as they can, it works well for us and gives us a no pressure way to stay in touch
I feel like a lot of people who bemoan the lack of friends also don’t invest in friendship. Don’t show up when invited, don’t organize anything themselves.
I used to run a book club and a board game club, and it was always kind of a struggle to get people to show up. The pull of “just go home and look at Instagram” is strong, I guess.
Some of us were sensitive to armchair betrayals to begin with, and can’t endure letting another snake in the garden.
Having kids, having to work…
Thank you for your service though.
My new home country has a thing called talkoot: it means people get together to do some work for someone (or the community), then this someone offers food & sauna (and that mean socialising, an excuse to crack a beer etc). Historically used when building houses, it is now a neat trick to both get together and get some work done.
I feel that you’ve severely misrepresented or misunderstood why people don’t show up to things. Assuming that they’re just addicted to instagram or whatever is such a crappy take.
Most adults are tired. They’re under paid, over worked, over stressed, and just plain worn down. The weight of a world designed to crush them has done its job very well.
People don’t show up because they’re depressed and stuck in a hole they don’t know how to get out of.
Source: I live in the real world. Also, I too run book clubs and shit and have seen people struggle to stay engaged.
You just explained why people go home and scroll though
“go home and look at Instagram” is largely a stand-in for “I’m tired and can’t muster the energy to do anything that feels more effortful”.
In my limited experience, the trick to getting out of the hole is doing the hard thing anyway. That and professional advice and medication as appropriate. You can’t to my knowledge willpower your way out of clinical depression. But ultimately if you want out of the hole, you have to climb out, regardless if that means therapy, medication, or being mildly uncomfortable. It’s not going to fix itself.
What you said applies to old friendships mostly. And yeah, they need maintenance. But today it’s really hard to connect with new people if you’re not a party person. The spaces where you would usually go to meet other interesting folks like libraries, parks or similiar are mostly devoid of people, and people who are there are there to chill out and, mostly, don’t really want to be bothered.
And I felt nothing but respect for you when I’ve read you ran clubs so that talks for itself. That requires hella energy and commitment xD
But just tomake sure I am clear - I do agree with you. It just goes further than this.
I usually recommend Meetup or similar. There’s a bunch that are just get togethers for board games or whatnot.
But you have to keep going. I think people expect to like go once and make a new best friend and partner. You usually need a lot of interactions to level up from “stranger” to “person I see sometimes” to friend.
I also ran a small meetup for a while before the pandemic. Made a few friends that way, but it’s a lot of thankless work.
I want to add it’s especially difficult if you work in a field that’s dominated by the opposite gender. My partner and I work in the same field. He’s made a few friends at work, because they’re all guys and connected over guy things.
On the other hand, I’m the only woman in my department, younger than all my male coworkers. The very few women that work in the company I don’t click with either due to language barrier or (mostly) completely different interests.
And then my partner points fingers as if I don’t want to make friends. All of his actual, IRL friends are either school or work friends. People who have friends mostly from childhood or school underestimate how difficult it is to find new ones outside work as an adult. Especially if you’re not into partying and drinking alcohol.
It’s a very widespread problem, and I don’t know how much to blame on media and culture vs human nature. Maybe some magical thinking too.
Basically, it’s the issue of people being on autopilot and expecting the life they’re supposed to have just happening to them. Interpersonal relationships are a huge part of it.
I must be the luckiest person on the planet according to this stuff. I ought to feel more blessed honestly
Where did you meet your friends?
By showing up to parties, inviting them to stuff, and just being generally helpful to them. The ones that reciprocate are worth keeping around, the ones that don’t can go on their way. Getting inviteed to the right parties is part of the luck I suppose
How do you get invited to parties without friends?
Wait for people to buy cases of beer at the store and follow them. With a bit of luck, you can blend right in.
This seems like bad advice.
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Not if you also bring a case of beer yourself
Sure, if you’re a skateboarding legend.
There are clubs for all sorts of stuff, nerdy stuff like chess or magic the gathering, hiking clubs, photography clubs, whatever hobby you have, there’s probably people out there with a club to share it. Just go and be a decent person, good chance you’ll find people who click with you, then you go from there
I suspect my tiny town might be less diverse than you think! But I appreciate the advice. Much gratitude to you.
people really don’t appreciate how barren anytown USA is…want to drive 30m to nearest movie theater or get drunk in a cornfield, maybe smoke weed and watch a movie at home. those are your 3 options
Poor bastard hasn’t even got a naive son asking why hes such a loser
Because Jessica won’t respond to his messages
Its definitely not Jessica’s fault he doesn’t have a son. Not her problem that this man can’t get laid.
Making, having and keeping friends is hard work.
I live in a super antisocial country and in 5 years I was able to make 15+ friends, a lot of them are close friends. Not all do i see every day, but I try to put in effort to keep in touch with them.
I worked really hard on getting out and meeting people, and it paid off.
Oh you’re friends with Mr. Likely as well!
TOO REAL ALERT
I’m getting emotional.
