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Will someone please give me a step-by-step guide on how to make new friends under 60 and have consistent daily “human experiences” outside of a city center?
I’d love to give up my phone and possibly TV… if it everyone else does too so there are other humans to interact with. Society is in a depressing cath-22 of loneliness.
Though it can’t be impossible. Group hobbies, sports, etc exist. Just gotta pick one and go to meet ups. But phone is so much easier 🤤
Why under 60?
One of my most interesting friends is a retired 68y/o Italian immigrant (we met when he was 62). I met him while cycling up a giant hill week after week. The third or fourth time we saw each other both heading to the same hill we struck up a conversation and started regularly riding together. He was also far better at climbing than I was!
Besides cycling, he had a connection to the local restaurant industry due to his previous career as a wine importer. So our coffee stops were often at places where he knew the staff and more conversations and frindships would arise. After his retirement he had a warehouse full of old wine crates and has started a small business turning those crates into custom furniture that is unbelievably beautiful.
Don’t let age be a factor in making friends.
Yeah, my best luck has been with signing up for some kind of weekly thing with a group of strangers.
Kinda doesn’t even matter what it is, but the more closely it aligns with your interests and values, the better time you’ll have.
I’m 25 so my experience is a little easier since people my age are looking for friends more actively, but I still think I can provide some advice. I have a huge friend group that I’m very proud of and put a lot of work into developing.
- You have to meet potential friends in the first place. Bars, clubs, bookstores, community events, volunteering, neighbors, etc. Ask about people’s interests and hobbies and see if any line up. Maybe you both like horror movies or a certain video game or something like that.
- You have to be active about it. Invite people to things, and put effort into it. What you do is up to you, but some universal things are dinner, board games, movies, etc. Don’t get too nervous about if it will be “boring” or “cool”. The way I think of it, is would I rather have a boring time with my friends or be on my phone by myself? I chose boring time with friends every time.
- Don’t be afraid to give up on making a certain friend. If someone isn’t being responsive or doesn’t seem interested in hanging out, that’s totally fine. Just move on. Don’t dwell on it. When I first moved to the city I live in, I tried making something like 15 or so friends and only about 3 of them actually went through with plans, and now we’re all besties. That means only 20%. Like I said, you have to put in effort.
This is seriously great advice!
I have a vague memory of reading an article years ago (can’t find it now) about how pre-industeializarion, the average number of people an individual interacted with and knew wa much smaller.
We used to live in small villages. Houses would contain extended families. You’d probably know your neighbors pretty well. You’d know the people you went to church with. It was not uncommon for someone to be born in a village and live their until their death without ever leaving that village.
Whenever I hear people talk about how humans NEED social connection I’m reminded of that. My college graduating class was perhaps more people than several generations of my ancestors interacted with. There’s a strong argument that we have hyper-optinizsd socialization today. Constantly connected to dozens of people we know and millions that we don’t. Stimulation, novelty, and distraction enough to last more lifetimes than I can imagine.
Perhaps in this modern age, the person most difficult to engage with and the most important, is the self.
I’d be willing to bet those people that never left their village would have had many deep connections within the village and would interact with at least a few people on a daily basis. We may tend to know many more people these days, but the connections tend to be shallow and/or infrequent.
On a lot of days, I speak to 0 people.
I’m 35 and the social circle I had from grade school died off slowly and then fully after covid.
Hobbies! Whatever hobby done eith others or can be done with others. Then just show up constantly. If you aren’t social poison in human form, people start talking with you.
I do:
Kickbox
Hiking, but only summer months I hate snow.
Dancing classes and I’m a man. This is a good way to get dates lowkey.
Tabletop board games. I don’t go to a store. I live in a small city ~30k I just found a group of like minded nerds on a locals D*scord group and go to their house. Yep. People really do that.
My main hobby is bicycling, which is a great way to meet people. Unfortunately, I really hate bicycling with other people, not to mention the fact that enormous gaggles of cyclists gabbing away and not looking ahead are an absolute menace on bike trails, so I never take advantage of the social aspect.
A lot of people suck though, and it makes sense to avoid those ones.
In the olden days, churches used to be the focal centerpoint of many local cultures, especially in rural areas. “3rd spaces” during our cultural transitions and all of that. (implication: you might need to literally move to find what you seek, or at least travel to a city
Or in the USA it will not be a problem anymore - people will all be forced to work so hard that having time to socialize outside of work or family will not be a concern. #firstworldproblems
There are many guides but this is my guide
Step 1: buy the GMs guide for a ttrpg
Step 2: write a fun premise for a campaign
Step 3: do a little light planning
Step 4: post that you’re lfg
Step 5: play the campaign
Step 6: forget you’re supposed to be playing a ttrpg because you just hang out with your new friends all the time
But what if you don’t want to GM?
I keep checking meetup for open games but they’re always full. And I live in a decent sized city.
If you don’t actually want to be a GM adjust these steps instead the following way :
2 - write a fun premise for a short 1-4 session adventure. Or maybe just find a prewritten, equally short, adventure.
4 - explain that you are not interested in running a full fledged campaign, but a series of short adventures. Add that you are more than happy to let others step-up and give a shot at GM-ing at some point. Do say it that you want all of this to remain fun and light-hearted ; set expectations accordingly to what you feel able to offer. Obviously, point out that you are a complete beginner at ttrpgs if that is the case.
5 - Give it your best shot but if GM-ing turns out really unbearable before you reach step 6, just say it. “Thanks guys for putting up with me and giving me a chance at GM-ing. I’ve come to realize that I’m just not cut out for this and I’d really appreciate if someone gives it a go for the next adventure. If not, I’m open to other games and activities, or just continue hanging out with you guys because your company has been a lot of fun so far. Unfortunately, I just don’t enjoy being a GM and this has been too painful for me”
You don’t have to be any good at GM-ing if your end goal is just to make friends. And GM-ing a decent enough game doesn’t have to be all that hard or require all that prep.
Of course, this will all require a certain amount of effort, likely more than just joining a game as a player. First try might not to be the right one too. You might not match with all, or any, of the players. But you don’t actually have to, starting a ttrpg with a group of strangers comes with the implication that this might not all work out.
Regrettably, usually if you don’t want to GM, you have to already have friends who do. Especially with the big influx of D&D interest from Stranger Things, every GM I know is completely swamped with players and don’t have any room left at their tables.
If you’re trying to make new friends, especially in-person friends, GM-ing is your best bet. It’s easier than it sounds, I promise. Some ttrpgs are really hard to run, but if it’s too hard for you, you just haven’t found a good system yet. A great starting point is Lady Blackbird because it comes with the adventure, system and characters all-in-one so prep is super simple. If that still seems daunting, there are also a lot of fun one page adventures that are even easier to run, like Trash Pandas. If you feel weird about the “being in charge” part of GM-ing, there are some really good cooperative storytelling games you can play, like The Quiet Year — oftentimes, if you get a good group together to play games like this a few times, a D&D campaign will break out all on its own.
I have experience GMing. It’s not particularly difficult but I found it was exhausting, it was almost impossible to get my group to do ANYTHING. Granted they did thoroughly investigate some random coins they found, which I invented a backstory for between sessions. But they immediately forgot about that when it was a new session.
I don’t know if I have the patience to go through that again.
I hear you! I’ve had some frustrating groups over the years as well. I mostly came to peace with it when I realized that sitting around a table and chit-chatting idly was a victory, and not a defeat, and that my game is mostly to have something to fill the gap when there’s an awkward silence. If you have some burning story to tell, it’s often not the best format.
Seriously after college work and DnD has been how I’ve made friends
No, but I’ll play some overwatch with you and I’m under 60. Close enough, right?
Check your local game store. Besideall th pokemon and MTG stuff, a lot of them have board game nights.
Also, check around your book/comic shops for book clubs. Comic shop near me has a horror graphic novel club that meets twice a month. I went to my first one last week and am excited to start going more.
And don’t be afraid to start something. Go to a bar/coffee shop and set up for an RPG. Open invite, open table. If you run it, you can kind of control the vibe.
I want to add to what others are saying. It’s going to be awkward and embarrassing at some point, just accept that going in. Most everyone feels awkward and embarrassed in brand new situations or maybe even a couple weeks in. Some people rise above it, be that one that gulps it down and keeps going.
I get the spirit of this post but imo the bigger factors are third places, leisure time and the death of the community.
Phones are just the better than nothing option.
Well atleast the economy for which we sacrificed all this is running smoothly.
starts crying and disassociating
The real puzzler is how people can spend hours reading their screens and still be bad at reading
They’re not reading, they’re watching 10 second videos
I sat at an intersection the other day for two minutes in my school bus. I glanced down into the car next to me and saw a kid sitting there watching a video of a woman trying to lift up a stick with big bunches of bananas on each end and failing at it. Video was like 5 seconds long and just kept looping. The kid wasn’t even laughing, just seemed to be in a coma. I’m sure there are dumber tiktoks out there but I can’t imagine what they would be.
People have been neglecting human experiences for forever. Phones are just the most recent method.
I do think the average person used to be better at the older methods though.
Hey, they’re mostly-read Wikipedia articles. It’s not my fault I get distracted by opening another article halfway through
Hey, in a blatant attempt at sabotage, have you heard of TV Tropes?
I’m not gonna link it because I don’t actually want to sabotage you and you probably already know it. However, it is a lot of fun.
It’s weird, TV Tropes has never sucked me in like Wikipedia can. It should, but it just doesn’t scratch the same itch for some reason
That’s fair.
I don’t know if it would have done me, except that in the past I’ve had several jobs (mostly call centers) where I had a decent amount of free time and relatively open web access, but sat in an area that was sufficiently well trafficked that browsing anything with lots of images (like a webcomic, which would have been my first instinct) was potentially a bad idea. Since TV Tropes is almost entirely text (or was when I frequented it) it was safe to browse at length. Of course, Wikipedia probably would have fulfilled this need as well.
That said, the other aspect for me is that I’ve always been an avid reader and oft enjoyed movies or TV, so I appreciated its ability to essentially say “oh, you liked x story? You’d probably enjoy y media because they share z details!” It definitely hugely expanded my media library.
Where can I get groomed on Discord at my age? Sounds like fun.
Wait do people not read their Wikipedia articles? I literally get stuck in a blue link rabbit hole and it’s suddenly 3am
Which is precisely why there are 100 pages open. I get to the end of a lot of them, but when I realize my brain’s too tired to keep up, I have to stop in the middle of a page.
Then the next night I pick up again, but sometimes with a different page because there’s just too much interesting stuff out there and sometimes I don’t intend to end up on Wikipedia, but a search leads me there and I fall into another rabbit hole. So then I have two pages open, not counting any I may leave open because, “Ooh, that’s interesting, I want to share that fact with my friend. But it’s midnight and I don’t want to wake them.” And… well, sometimes I remember and send the info, but sometime the page stays open until I do a clean-through of my tabs…
I especially love it when people ask me directions to some random place, while they have Google maps open on their phone… Like, why? How hard is it to follow ‘go left, go right’.??
Sometimes the calibration is off and you’re unsure which direction you’re supposed to go but this happened to me.
A french lady with some company came up to me and asked for directions to a cinema, so I pointed out the way which was straight ahead for two blocks and then one left, exactly the same route the Google maps she showed me had. And in the correct direction she was facing.
Like… just follow it man
In my experience Google maps is frequently wrong about the last 20 meters or so.
So you’re wandering around the block looking for the entrance
When the calibration is off, either calibrate it. It takes 2 seconds. Or just walk 5m and see where it goes. Or just read the map as, you know, a map.
Right? Although plenty of people don’t know how to recalibrate their phone
Google isn’t always right though.
It’s always something that Google is right about. Maybe not to the exact meter. Most of the time I help them by whipping out Google maps myself
No, no it isn’t always right about maps. It might be because we’re in Seattle or AI has been taking over more than it should, but it’s been wrong a lot lately.
It was in my anecdotal experience, which is what I meant. But yes Google maps really has taken a nose dive lately.
Hey! I will read those tabs later! Maybe.
I spend most of my time between a collection of vm’s running (mostly) Debian Linux and I’m at least mediocre at it!
I kinda don’t give a single fuck what’s happening on NAZI-BOT-5000
Probably best to mute/block the sublemmy that’s about it, then.
easy dopamine is still easy dopamine tho
