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 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.
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.
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 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.
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.