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If you go to lunch with a friend, ask "would you like to do this regularly?"
lunch/walk/hike/movie/dinner/gaming/sewing/driving/<your-idea-here>
weekly/every two weeks/every first saturday of the month
don't worry about flakiness
I've done this with a few people and my life has gotten better.
at first it was a little awkward, but people RESPONDED to it. Others need this too!
Throughout school, my mates would meet up at a lookout on Wednesday @ 3-5ish PM, go grab dinner and just hang out.
Been doing this for 7 years straight. There is enough of us that someone being sick or away doesn't impact anything.
One of my old best friends from my 20's/30's only leaves the house to go to work, sits alone on social media circle jerk politics, never returns texts, the few times I've seen him he just complained about not having friends and it being everyone else's fault.
If you want to make more friends, leave your house, go out and volunteer somewhere. Return calls/emails/texts with the people you meet. Do the work, get more friends.
And yes, the findings in TFA are true. The main catalyzer is something you do regularly with another person. That's it. It could be just sitting next to each other, but weekly. The best thing for this is joining a club, clubs happen around a common interest but also a club could just be something like "we sit on this bench every week".
I got busy with work and other stuff and have not put in the care this project needs to get it off the ground, but if you're interested in helping out, feel free to reach out.
Two takeaways (not mentioned in TFA):
* Being intentional means knowing thyself and deciding what you want in your life with as much detail as you can. "I want to meet new people" is not as good as "I want to meet people who like baking muffins AND are actively engaged with it AND also want to meet other people that are heavily into muffins". Sure, the audience is greatly reduced the more specific you go, but the value of that group when you find it is 100x more rewarding. You don't need 100 friends, you only need 2 or 3 genuinely good friends :).
* A lot of people are on the same boat as you, way more than you imagine. Something like 6-7 out of 10. So, grab your hometown population, multiply it by 0.7, that's how many people are willing to make new friends TODAY. The problem is that we have been trained to suck at meeting new people, the processes by which we discover each other and learn about each other has been labeled as "exposing yourself" by nu-psychologists (of which the vast majority should be imprisoned imo, but that's a different topic).
The reason why this (fear) has been ingrained into the population is to have a mass of people who age/die faster because they are lonely and (induced to be) stupid; but again, that's a different topic, lol. I just want to give you the overall context.
A club is the perfect excuse to let those guards down, after all, you and others think "I'm not a creep[2], I'm here because I genuinely like <collecting Pokemon cards or whatever>" and those connections start to flourish naturally (because they're natural, we are primed to meet people, we are primed to make connections). So, go ahead and just join one local club that caters to your interest; if it doesn't exist, create it, it will be a very rewarding experience.
1: Everyone told me to do D&D. I don't like D&D and trying to force yourself into something you don't really like just to meet people has low ROI (I've tried it for years, I stopped doing it).
2: Thinking you are one is part of the psychological abuse that was put in there on purpose and by design. I cannot stress this enough, one must understand the causes to tackle the disease properly.
On advice like yours, I started a niche club and ran it for 3 years. When people join your club, they're not there to meet you! They're joining to participate in the club. Now you're in the awkward position of responsibility as the club's host/organizer, with the additional distance between you and the other participants.
>The main catalyzer is something you do regularly with another person.
The easiest thing to do that in an intentional way is to find regular activities and do them with other people. The activity is the excuse to be together for x amount of time every week, be it whatever. If you choose something you genuinely like, not only will your intent be more sincere but even if you didn't meet anyone, at least you did something you enjoyed.
This is advice for people who have zero or one friends. If you already friends, then, by definition, you don't have this problem. Also, a bit controversial but useful, people who don't have this problem usually give very poor advice to people who have it. "Just make more friends, bro".
I'm curious to hear if you can think of a better way to make friends irl with a decent chance of success.
>I started a niche club and ran it for 3 years.
Did you not make one single lasting connection (friendship) from that?
In my experience, this does tend to happen in smaller communities - a small town where everyone knows each other, and already has picked out all the people they're likely to be friends with.
> Being intentional is essential, she says.
> According to Franco, the key to building a community of friends is setting up planned interactions, like regular group events or rotating potlucks.
For me, this is D&D.
Do men (here) experience this often? Not often? I’ve not stumbled into this problem in many years. Perhaps this is an exaggerated issue.
And I’m still making male friends - not every day, but not none!
What do you think would work well? What do you think the pitfalls might be?
Not cynically. Just, is this a hobby for someone? If so, awesome. In my town we have a WhatsApp org for local musicians that helps with gear exchange, gig promotion, collaboration, etc.
Restaurants and bars and event spaces use a myriad of promotion vehicles. Other local businesses. The paper. Official announcements from the town. Other events. Etc. Same with the groups playing.
The ways to find this stuff aren’t amazing but not so bad that I’m searching for another app on my phone.
The bars in my city don't have public APIs. If you start small and local, you could maybe get buy in from some places, "Send this address an email with event details and I will help you get butts in the door!"
Also if you build any app that lets you meet new people, especially new people with compatible interests, Match Group will buy you out and turn whatever you built into another tinder.