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I made a point to improve my social skills before covid and I'm now I'm having an absolute field day. The number of people who are lonely and wish they had some

I made a point to improve my social skills before covid and I'm now I'm having an absolute field day. The number of people who are lonely and wish they had something to do means that when I ask someone to coffee, drinks, or just to hangout, chances are they'll say yes. I'm an active member of one of my city's discord servers, so there's a substantial pool to draw from. I've organized in person book clubs, movie nights, and group coffee outings, all from the same pool. More recently, I've engaged with my city's kink community which has no shortage of public socials. I'm at the point where I have to be choosy about how I want to spend my time because it's easy to get over booked. Maybe I have higher initiative than most, but I found the experience to be dependent on how much effort I put into it and incredibly rewarding.

KittenInABox 2y ago
IME this is the right of it- it is harder to develop the muscle to take the initiative to be social. It's hard to consider but socializing is an active investment, not a passive one to be consumed easily like social media feeds. It's very easy to say "I signed up for a thing, but I'll flake instead because I just don't feel like it".
dinkumthinkum 2y ago
Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, if you are “engaging [your] city’s kink community,” you are probably a strong outlier!
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  I was already checked out when I saw "discord". This isn't an insult, it's just that the variance in discord users is narrow enough that that common trait alone is enough to make a viable social group of broadly like-minded people.
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    Those are good points. I usually score quite high on openness [1], though I lean more introverted overall. While focusing on courage has been helpful for me, I may have overgeneralized my own experiences. Maybe my approach isn’t something everyone can take on — it certainly didn’t come naturally to me. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
  - squigz 2y ago
    In my experience, the variety of people on Discord is just the same as that in real life - more so, in fact, since I'm unlikely to meet many people who live in various places around the world in real life ;)
- robocat 2y ago
  Has not kink become mainstream? Especially for software devs (HN crowd).
  - saagarjha 2y ago
    No. Hacker News is a very shifted selection of software developers.
  - eli_gottlieb 2y ago
    Errr... no.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    Furries, maybe. Rest of it, not really.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Outside of tech circles, I don't think us furries are all that mainstream either. Or at least, no more mainstream than we have been all along — we've always been there, e.g. Disney's Robin Hood, but most of the cultural memes today seem to be varieties of disapproval. Inside tech, of course, there's loads of us. Emergency cat ears for the sysadmin, etc.
- jancsika 2y ago
  It's an outlier to the common case: HN'ers who have kinks but feel resigned to tacitly explore them only online. In other words, OP's action isn't orthogonal to the average HN'ers interests-- it's a healthy alternative (well realistically, supplement).
  - kelseyfrog 2y ago
    I'd add that some aspects are profoundly healthy. There is a regular cuddle party event in my area that begins with an informative and interactive workshop on consent and negotiation. Being able to practice delivering "no", negotiating to find common ground, and asking for what I want has been transformative experience for me. I'm a better communicator - something that I use now in both my vanilla and non-vanilla lives.

KittenInABox 2y ago

IME this is the right of it- it is harder to develop the muscle to take the initiative to be social. It's hard to consider but socializing is an active investment, not a passive one to be consumed easily like social media feeds. It's very easy to say "I signed up for a thing, but I'll flake instead because I just don't feel like it".

dinkumthinkum 2y ago

Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, if you are “engaging [your] city’s kink community,” you are probably a strong outlier!

Workaccount2 2y ago
I was already checked out when I saw "discord". This isn't an insult, it's just that the variance in discord users is narrow enough that that common trait alone is enough to make a viable social group of broadly like-minded people.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  Those are good points. I usually score quite high on openness [1], though I lean more introverted overall. While focusing on courage has been helpful for me, I may have overgeneralized my own experiences. Maybe my approach isn’t something everyone can take on — it certainly didn’t come naturally to me. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
- squigz 2y ago
  In my experience, the variety of people on Discord is just the same as that in real life - more so, in fact, since I'm unlikely to meet many people who live in various places around the world in real life ;)
robocat 2y ago
Has not kink become mainstream? Especially for software devs (HN crowd).
- saagarjha 2y ago
  No. Hacker News is a very shifted selection of software developers.
- eli_gottlieb 2y ago
  Errr... no.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Furries, maybe. Rest of it, not really.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Outside of tech circles, I don't think us furries are all that mainstream either. Or at least, no more mainstream than we have been all along — we've always been there, e.g. Disney's Robin Hood, but most of the cultural memes today seem to be varieties of disapproval. Inside tech, of course, there's loads of us. Emergency cat ears for the sysadmin, etc.
jancsika 2y ago
It's an outlier to the common case: HN'ers who have kinks but feel resigned to tacitly explore them only online. In other words, OP's action isn't orthogonal to the average HN'ers interests-- it's a healthy alternative (well realistically, supplement).
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  I'd add that some aspects are profoundly healthy. There is a regular cuddle party event in my area that begins with an informative and interactive workshop on consent and negotiation. Being able to practice delivering "no", negotiating to find common ground, and asking for what I want has been transformative experience for me. I'm a better communicator - something that I use now in both my vanilla and non-vanilla lives.