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Making New Friends?
Zyre
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm looking for advice on how to make some new friends. I think I'm doing everything right, but nothing ever seems to work out anymore, and I feel kinda weird at my age (24) looking for new friends.
A little backround; I have a tight circle of friends that I've kept since grade school. Theres about 10 of us. They however, have all 'moved on' in life you could say, where as I'm looking to hang out, go out, or party all the time and they are unavailable to do so. Due to marriage (half of em are married already!) or extensive schooling, combination of both, hell even one of my friends is a parent of a 4 year old already.
My happiness in life is gained by spending time with people I've bonded with (close friends) and now that I've been cut off by pretty much all of them except for special occasions, I'm left with exuberant amounts of free time and no one to spend it with. I used to medicate the situation with video games, but I got burned out on gaming years ago working in the game industry as a tester for 4 years.
Some other info; I don't currently go to school, so theres nothing available to me in that regard, and I work graveyard shifts currently all by myself for 8 hours with no social interaction with anyone. I don't like going to bars unless its with friends (I wouldn't want to go alone to meet people) and I am agnostic, therefore do not attend any religous cult meetings. And...I generally don't like going out to public places in general. Like gyms. Call me weird, but I don't like to go anywhere in public unless I'm with someone!
What's left for me to do to meet people?
Example of last person I tried to befriend; new swing shift employee at work, I come in for my grave shift to relieve her. We start talking more and more as time goes on, we have lots of things in common, she's very well educated, and I enjoy talking with someone who's intelligent as I consider myself a pretty intelligent person, after several months of these midnight rendevous with her sometimes staying an hour or 2 after her shift to talk with me, phone numbers are exchanged, emails, etc. Now things are fine and dandy. So I make a few attempts to spend time with her outside of work, and get blown off over and over again. We make more plans, I get blown off more. I wasn't blown off entirely, I believe there has been 3 total occasions in the last 9 months where we've socialized outside of work. Not as much as I'd like, at all. She ends up quitting her job, and I don't get to see her anymore. So I try to spend more time with her outside of work, nothing ever happens. We talk on the phone once in awhile, email, she says she wants to hang out, we continue to make plans to do things, yet when those days come and I call her up she doesn't answer her phone, and goes dark for like a week... the next time we talk she apologizes, tells me why (it sounds legit, but Im thinking im getting played off at this point) and we make plans to make up for last time, and the cycle repeats itself, over and over and over again and frankly I've given up on the situation. It's frustrating because I really like her, she's fun to be around and spend time with, but I'm tired of her treating me like shit.
I've since now tried to befriend friends of other friends, and it's just not working at all, I'll send messages to people ask if they want to hang out, and I get ignored.
I am going crazy here.
A little backround; I have a tight circle of friends that I've kept since grade school. Theres about 10 of us. They however, have all 'moved on' in life you could say, where as I'm looking to hang out, go out, or party all the time and they are unavailable to do so. Due to marriage (half of em are married already!) or extensive schooling, combination of both, hell even one of my friends is a parent of a 4 year old already.
My happiness in life is gained by spending time with people I've bonded with (close friends) and now that I've been cut off by pretty much all of them except for special occasions, I'm left with exuberant amounts of free time and no one to spend it with. I used to medicate the situation with video games, but I got burned out on gaming years ago working in the game industry as a tester for 4 years.
Some other info; I don't currently go to school, so theres nothing available to me in that regard, and I work graveyard shifts currently all by myself for 8 hours with no social interaction with anyone. I don't like going to bars unless its with friends (I wouldn't want to go alone to meet people) and I am agnostic, therefore do not attend any religous cult meetings. And...I generally don't like going out to public places in general. Like gyms. Call me weird, but I don't like to go anywhere in public unless I'm with someone!
What's left for me to do to meet people?
Example of last person I tried to befriend; new swing shift employee at work, I come in for my grave shift to relieve her. We start talking more and more as time goes on, we have lots of things in common, she's very well educated, and I enjoy talking with someone who's intelligent as I consider myself a pretty intelligent person, after several months of these midnight rendevous with her sometimes staying an hour or 2 after her shift to talk with me, phone numbers are exchanged, emails, etc. Now things are fine and dandy. So I make a few attempts to spend time with her outside of work, and get blown off over and over again. We make more plans, I get blown off more. I wasn't blown off entirely, I believe there has been 3 total occasions in the last 9 months where we've socialized outside of work. Not as much as I'd like, at all. She ends up quitting her job, and I don't get to see her anymore. So I try to spend more time with her outside of work, nothing ever happens. We talk on the phone once in awhile, email, she says she wants to hang out, we continue to make plans to do things, yet when those days come and I call her up she doesn't answer her phone, and goes dark for like a week... the next time we talk she apologizes, tells me why (it sounds legit, but Im thinking im getting played off at this point) and we make plans to make up for last time, and the cycle repeats itself, over and over and over again and frankly I've given up on the situation. It's frustrating because I really like her, she's fun to be around and spend time with, but I'm tired of her treating me like shit.
I've since now tried to befriend friends of other friends, and it's just not working at all, I'll send messages to people ask if they want to hang out, and I get ignored.
I am going crazy here.
Zyre on
0
Posts
If you have any interests that have social clubs associated with them, you could join one of these groups. Sports work well for this... Depending on your area, there's bound to be all sorts of casual teams and leagues to join.
If you have ever had anything you would like to learn about, you could join a class for that. For example, maybe you would like to learn about photography, so just go to the local community college and sign up for a photography class. Bound to meet a few people there, and you already have something in common.
Though I have never done this myself, some of the networking sites that seem so popular these days could be used to find potential friends.
Join a local club or a rec league sports team.
Volunteer.
Shogun Streams Vidya
My problem differs in that I'm married so it would be in my best interest to find a friendly couple. Problem is my wife and I have very different interests so a club/sport of some sort doesn;t really work for us. I don't really know what to do.
!!!!▓▓▓▓▓Gravy?▓▓▓▓▓!!!!!!
!!!!!!▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓!!!!!!!!!
of doom
You and SixkillerNYC both suggested joining a social club like a sports team in a rec league - I have a very high interest in doing this, but I have no idea where to go or where to find out more about how to go about doing this. I live a little ways north of Seattle, so if anyone has any suggestions for the greater seattle area about this I'd like to hear, if you dont know the area, some general information about where to look would be immensely helpful.
I'm not sure, but if you like a sport and want to see how you can get connected with that sport in the city, google it. Like, seriously. I know that google'ing "Saskatoon Soccer" brings up the SDSA (Saskatoon District Soccer Association) which has connections and contacts for getting on random teams for league play and other things like that. (Now, I already knew that the SDSA had a site and just forget their address all the time, but I know that google'ing Saskatoon Soccer will get me to the site, so I do that all the time. Seattle is bigger, so it should work, no?)
[Edit] At the very least, you might find discussion groups or other things like that (newsletters, maybe?) about the sports or groups you are interested in in your city.
Yes.
I always meet interesting, good people when I volunteer. They are often attractive young women.
I eventually met the great set of friends I have now through the gym. Some guy happened to have the same mp3 player as me (an iriver h300, the geeks choice) and that sparked up a conversation. He said him + mates were going out for a drink so I joined them and learned one was looking at moving out. I too was looking after moving out and finding someone to live with (to ease financial burdon). Two weeks later and I'd moved in with someone new, and gained an entirely new set of friends.
My social life is awesome now
(Ok, maybe moving in with an almost complete stranger isn't the best of ideas but my main point was my current social life stemmed entirely from an mp3 player at the gym)
PSN: SirGrinchX
Oculus Rift: Sir_Grinch
Depending on what kind of music you are into, go to local shows. You generally see a lot of the same people at local shows, so it's easy to befriend them. Thats how I've met 3-4 of my closest friends.
Laos' suggestion of googling is good. Check Craigslist too. Just look under the "groups" and "activities" sections and you'll see all sorts of club recruitment announcements, including sports clubs.
Hah. I guess I should have mentioned I am not really into music in my initial post. But it is good advice for meeting people none the less. I am one very strange individual - I do not listen to music by choice. Not saying I don't enjoy music, I do - I just do not choose to listen to it very much at all. Songs are like books or movies to me, once I've read or watched it (or heard it on Music's case) I don't really care to hear that song ever again. Once in awhile I'll get in the mood and listen to music I have, like putting in an old movie I've seen a dozen times, and give 'er a listen. But the extent of my music listening on a daily basis comes from the radio in my truck, when I drive, but most of the time I listen to talk radio if I can.
Thank you for all the advice PA forumers! I will start google searching and craigslist searching for rec leagues when I get back from my trip this weekend.