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I the last few years I had to move contries a few times and basically rebuild my entire social circle each time – and it made me aware how much of finding frien

I the last few years I had to move contries a few times and basically rebuild my entire social circle each time – and it made me aware how much of finding friends is just a matter of logistics. I think that much of the loneliness problem comes down to people just not having a process that helps them meet new friends. In most places, there's a surprising amount of events where you can meet new people. For me it was open boardgame nights – the difficult part was actually beating the inertia and going there, but once I did, I think I made about an average of one new friend per two outings, as long as I remembered to message them afterwards.

kibwen 4y ago
There really is a massive gulf between small-town friend-making strategies and big-city friend-making strategies. In a small town you can form a friend group by osmosis, because there's exactly two churches, exactly two bars, exactly one grocery store, so you see everyone regularly and, furthermore, you have no choice who to socialize with, and you know everyone else also has no choice who to socialize with, so you all might as well socialize together and be "friends" even if you don't really actually like each other all that much. You'll be cordial with everyone, but gossip runs rampant and even your best friend might be cruel to you when out of earshot. In a big city, it's the opposite. You can be desperately lonely despite being surrounded by throngs of people at all times. To make friends, you have to really try and put yourself out there. It's hard. But once you do, you may find it more fulfilling, because instead of settling for people who were merely there, you've filtered the city to people who share your interests and found people who you actually want to be around, and you know the people who want to be around you aren't just doing it out of a dearth of options. Higher risk, higher reward.
- donw 4y ago
  > ... so you all might as well socialize together and be "friends" even if you don't really actually like each other all that much. Learning to get along with other people, not just the people you like, and not just the people in your "in-group", is a massively important social skill. American urbanites tend stick out here in Japan precisely for this reason. They only associate with each other and complain constantly about how Japan is "so backwards" compared to back home. There's no olive bar at the supermarket, there's no vegan meat, etc. Folks from non-Anglosphere countries -- urban or rural -- usually integrate far better, at least as much as one can in Japan. > ... but gossip runs rampant and even your best friend might be cruel to you when out of earshot. This happens all the time in cities. San Francisco was full of the most empty-smiling, gossip-spreading, stab-you-in-the-back people I've encountered in my life.
joe_the_user 4y ago
Here in Nevada City, I ran a D&D game pre-Covid. Restarting afterwards has been frustrating despite me putting considerable effort into flyering at local cafes and advertising on Meetup and Facebook. I was speaking to a friend runs a local yoga studio and event center, a lot of in-person is simply struggling. Also, it doesn't that Meetup.com is now broken in many ways - for example, it won't give me messages on my phone.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  COVID decimated our local live Poker league, we'd regularly have multi-table tournaments 2019 and earlier. That obviously had to stop with the pandemic, and now, as the pandemic is slowing (but not over), nobody is around anymore. They've either lost interest or many of them have simply moved away because of remote work.

kibwen 4y ago

There really is a massive gulf between small-town friend-making strategies and big-city friend-making strategies. In a small town you can form a friend group by osmosis, because there's exactly two churches, exactly two bars, exactly one grocery store, so you see everyone regularly and, furthermore, you have no choice who to socialize with, and you know everyone else also has no choice who to socialize with, so you all might as well socialize together and be "friends" even if you don't really actually like each other all that much. You'll be cordial with everyone, but gossip runs rampant and even your best friend might be cruel to you when out of earshot. In a big city, it's the opposite. You can be desperately lonely despite being surrounded by throngs of people at all times. To make friends, you have to really try and put yourself out there. It's hard. But once you do, you may find it more fulfilling, because instead of settling for people who were merely there, you've filtered the city to people who share your interests and found people who you actually want to be around, and you know the people who want to be around you aren't just doing it out of a dearth of options. Higher risk, higher reward.

donw 4y ago
> ... so you all might as well socialize together and be "friends" even if you don't really actually like each other all that much. Learning to get along with other people, not just the people you like, and not just the people in your "in-group", is a massively important social skill. American urbanites tend stick out here in Japan precisely for this reason. They only associate with each other and complain constantly about how Japan is "so backwards" compared to back home. There's no olive bar at the supermarket, there's no vegan meat, etc. Folks from non-Anglosphere countries -- urban or rural -- usually integrate far better, at least as much as one can in Japan. > ... but gossip runs rampant and even your best friend might be cruel to you when out of earshot. This happens all the time in cities. San Francisco was full of the most empty-smiling, gossip-spreading, stab-you-in-the-back people I've encountered in my life.

joe_the_user 4y ago

Here in Nevada City, I ran a D&D game pre-Covid. Restarting afterwards has been frustrating despite me putting considerable effort into flyering at local cafes and advertising on Meetup and Facebook. I was speaking to a friend runs a local yoga studio and event center, a lot of in-person is simply struggling. Also, it doesn't that Meetup.com is now broken in many ways - for example, it won't give me messages on my phone.

ryandrake 4y ago
COVID decimated our local live Poker league, we'd regularly have multi-table tournaments 2019 and earlier. That obviously had to stop with the pandemic, and now, as the pandemic is slowing (but not over), nobody is around anymore. They've either lost interest or many of them have simply moved away because of remote work.