Where's a normal place to meet people?

[sde]

Where does anyone go to meet people and make friends, normally? I mean, not special suggestions made up just for giving advice, but where it actually has happened in your own experience or that of someone you know. Please be very specific about where, what sort of place, and when if relevant, and what sort of situation needs to be going on, if relevant.

Why I'm asking this question: I haven't met anyone new to me for years. I only see my girlfriend, and she doesn't have friends either. (We met at a counseling center.) Hundreds of times when I'm lonely or want to improve my life I've thought of "going out" and meeting people, because it seems like that's what people say to do to meet people. But thinking that doesn't get me anywhere, because I don't know where to "go out." When I used to go to counseling, I asked over and over, what to do, where to go, and I only got stupid advice like make small talk about the weather with the clerk at the grocery store. I asked, then would I make friends with her, I don't want to hold everyone in line up having a conversation if it wouldn't do any good, have you ever made friends with the clerk at a store? The counselor laughed at me and said it's just chitchat, just for practice.

Some people here seem to have enough social experience despite their social anxiety to answer this question helpfully. Others here maybe like me have been held back so long by social anxiety that we haven't learned what to do or we've forgotten.

 

[sabbath92002]

Beats me. I'm thinking of posting something on craigslist, on the platonic personals. My wife and I have been married 15 years and haven't made any new friends in all that time. All my friends have moved away. I really don't want to make friends with people at work because it could get awkward if there's a falling out. We go out to concerts and clubs but hardly talk with anyone there.

Sample ad: Headbanging couple seek similar for conversation and concerts.

 

[Richey]

- music festivals, music store
- carnivals
- ice cream parlour
- cinema (yes believe it or not)
- school or university
- library (studious people)
- shopping center
- job
- athletics
- sporting club
- train station, then while on train

there's a long list

 

[Edith]

Where does anyone go to meet people and make friends, normally? I mean, not special suggestions made up just for giving advice, but where it actually has happened in your own experience or that of someone you know. Please be very specific about where, what sort of place, and when if relevant, and what sort of situation needs to be going on, if relevant.

Why I'm asking this question: I haven't met anyone new to me for years. I only see my girlfriend, and she doesn't have friends either. (We met at a counseling center.) Hundreds of times when I'm lonely or want to improve my life I've thought of "going out" and meeting people, because it seems like that's what people say to do to meet people. But thinking that doesn't get me anywhere, because I don't know where to "go out." When I used to go to counseling, I asked over and over, what to do, where to go, and I only got stupid advice like make small talk about the weather with the clerk at the grocery store. I asked, then would I make friends with her, I don't want to hold everyone in line up having a conversation if it wouldn't do any good, have you ever made friends with the clerk at a store? The counselor laughed at me and said it's just chitchat, just for practice.

Some people here seem to have enough social experience despite their social anxiety to answer this question helpfully. Others here maybe like me have been held back so long by social anxiety that we haven't learned what to do or we've forgotten.

Most of the friends that I have - or have ever had - are people that I met at work, or through people at work.

I'll make friends with the people that I work with. We'll hang out and talk at work. Then we'll get lunch together and eventually we'll hang out after work together. Then I meet their friends and make friends with them and so on, and so on.

I find it easy to talk to people at work because its a no pressure situation - you work together so you can take your time getting to know people because you see them for 8hrs a day everyday.

Work is where I make friends, and meeting their friends is how I make more friends. Not in a leechy kind of way, but in a normal social kind of way.

Other situations don't allow me enough time to know a person or let a person know me... I guess I need more time than a chance meeting allows.

 

[sde]

Thank you for your replies. I thought I might have to apologize for asking so critically, being frustrated about this subject.

- music festivals, music store
- carnivals
- ice cream parlour
- cinema (yes believe it or not)
- school or university
- library (studious people)
- shopping center
- job
- athletics
- sporting club
- train station, then while on train

there's a long list

That might be a good answer to my question. I have no way of knowing if it's absolutely true or if it's made up from a mix of personal memories of exchanging a word with a stranger here and there, third hand stories, and imagination based on television and movies.

music festivals - Out of several years of going to a music festival, once I met a woman who became a friend that I saw a few times over a few months before she moved away. That's the only person from what I think of as the "real world," that is, everywhere outside of family and school and mental health places, that I've ever been friends with that much.

library - I used to go to the library every other day or so, for a few years, and I absolutely never met anyone there that I didn't already know.

job - When I worked for a few months at places that had a lot of people I could have met, I talked in the break room with some people a few times, but I didn't really make friends with anyone. I think that's mostly just what I chose and that actually those were normal places to meet people, for people who happened to work there.
[/i]

 

[sabbath92003]

www.meetup.com might have events in your area that interest you also

 

[dottie]

i don't think it's so much a matter of location, rather: how do i get over the barrier of initiating conversation then let it continue further? and how to do it without awkwardness or desperation. because you can meet people anywhere, really. places you can meet people are school, work, book signings, concerts, restaurants, anywhere you bring your physical self! but it doesn't matter where you are if you don't have the skills to initiate a conversation and lead that into a relationship.

and i am no good with those skills so i'm of no help.

 

[Argamemnon]

Beats me. I'm thinking of posting something on craigslist, on the platonic personals. My wife and I have been married 15 years and haven't made any new friends in all that time. All my friends have moved away. I really don't want to make friends with people at work because it could get awkward if there's a falling out. We go out to concerts and clubs but hardly talk with anyone there.

What about relatives, don't you have contact with them either?

 

[sabbath92002]

What about relatives, don't you have contact with them either?

Well, I try to keep contact with my family to a minimum. I help them when I can (setting up computers, etc.), but I don't really feel comfortable around them. I realize some people like spending time with their families, but their's most not have been as dysfunctional as mine was / is. I love them and I forgive them for all the shit they put me through, but you can't argue with a sick mind. Sometimes they can be civil, but when they go off the tracks in public it's not a pretty sight. I'm trying to learn to make room for my anxiety around them. But I'd also like some friends that at least love heavy metal music half as much as I do.