friends plus plus
Q: How do you make friends after college?
A: The answer I get from most of my friends is, "it's difficult," which it is, but I would still like to find a solution because I'm going kinda stir crazy here. I don't connect to anyone at work or at my martial arts classes, and most of my friends from high school or college don't talk to me anymore, or are really far away. I would like to have friends in New York with whom I can talk freely and do activities, but those I have tend to be too busy or are embroiled in friends groups or activities which don't seem to leave them with much space or desire to connect with me. So at this point I'm a little stuck. What can I do to make more friends? What can I do to make good friends?
It seems strange even to me when I ask. I am the kind of person who can find out a great deal about a total stranger in just a few minutes' conversation. I always thought I had a pretty sizable ego, but it turns out that I'm friends with lots of people who know almost nothing about me, because I just end up asking them about them for hours on end during our interactions. I don't know whether that tendency comes from genuine curiosity, a sense of social impropriety about forcing my interests on other people, or insecurity that my interests are not interesting enough; in all likelihood it's all three.
Ideally I think I want to find people who like talking about rap music or comic books or role-playing games or martial arts or religion, but I am inexperienced in these endeavors. I suppose for rap music I would have to find some clubs where there are performances and people talk about them, although I have never been to a concert where people talked to strangers much. I'm told that less-promoted venues and shows tend to foster more of a social environment, but those venues are ... less promoted ... and I don't have any friends in New York who listen to hip hop. Comic books I think are talked about mostly on the Internet these days, although I guess I could start/find a book club. Do they have book clubs on Craigslist? Is that how people find book clubs? Would a book club for comic books attract really scary people? Role-playing games seem to have a similar problem going on to comic books. Again, I could try to find groups on the Internet. Martial arts has been a pretty dry source of friends so far; people at all the martial arts schools I've been to tend to be either cliquey or much much older. Religion ... well, trouble is that all the religious communities I'm interested in are populated primarily by immigrants, and there's a language barrier to get over. They also tend to be difficult to find because they don't proselytize and often conceal themselves to avoid persecution.
So my interests are not an especially comforting source of new connections, though that doesn't mean I won't try. I guess I should try one of these web sites for meeting people, like OKCupid or meetup.
A: The answer I get from most of my friends is, "it's difficult," which it is, but I would still like to find a solution because I'm going kinda stir crazy here. I don't connect to anyone at work or at my martial arts classes, and most of my friends from high school or college don't talk to me anymore, or are really far away. I would like to have friends in New York with whom I can talk freely and do activities, but those I have tend to be too busy or are embroiled in friends groups or activities which don't seem to leave them with much space or desire to connect with me. So at this point I'm a little stuck. What can I do to make more friends? What can I do to make good friends?
It seems strange even to me when I ask. I am the kind of person who can find out a great deal about a total stranger in just a few minutes' conversation. I always thought I had a pretty sizable ego, but it turns out that I'm friends with lots of people who know almost nothing about me, because I just end up asking them about them for hours on end during our interactions. I don't know whether that tendency comes from genuine curiosity, a sense of social impropriety about forcing my interests on other people, or insecurity that my interests are not interesting enough; in all likelihood it's all three.
Ideally I think I want to find people who like talking about rap music or comic books or role-playing games or martial arts or religion, but I am inexperienced in these endeavors. I suppose for rap music I would have to find some clubs where there are performances and people talk about them, although I have never been to a concert where people talked to strangers much. I'm told that less-promoted venues and shows tend to foster more of a social environment, but those venues are ... less promoted ... and I don't have any friends in New York who listen to hip hop. Comic books I think are talked about mostly on the Internet these days, although I guess I could start/find a book club. Do they have book clubs on Craigslist? Is that how people find book clubs? Would a book club for comic books attract really scary people? Role-playing games seem to have a similar problem going on to comic books. Again, I could try to find groups on the Internet. Martial arts has been a pretty dry source of friends so far; people at all the martial arts schools I've been to tend to be either cliquey or much much older. Religion ... well, trouble is that all the religious communities I'm interested in are populated primarily by immigrants, and there's a language barrier to get over. They also tend to be difficult to find because they don't proselytize and often conceal themselves to avoid persecution.
So my interests are not an especially comforting source of new connections, though that doesn't mean I won't try. I guess I should try one of these web sites for meeting people, like OKCupid or meetup.