Bonus points: if that place/activity is friendly for disabled people with limited mobility.
First off, you cannot attend any kind of event where women are involved.
I’m not doing a battle of the sexes thing, but the reality is that social dynamics massively change when opposite sex are involved. It is fundamentally impossible to have genuine interactions with other men, when women are around.
Before you get all triggered and decide to hit the downvote, remember I am not doing battle of the sexes…you cannot take women’s wine night for example, deposit a man in the group and expect the social dynamic to remain the same.
So go find something where women are not allowed. Find a clubhouse with a crudely written sign that says “no girls allowed” and the R is backwards.
Find a place where men are not in competition for the attention of women.
Volunteer in outreach orgs or at events that are related to your interests.
There are also mutual aid orgs. They are almost always accessibility aware. Maybe check in with MADR. They may be able to point to local groups if you’re in the US.
There’s also Food Not Bombs which is great!
Your nearest, biggest city’s library is a good place to look. Libraries almost always have something going on in a spare public room or have public event flyers hung up. If you’re interested in politics, going and yelling at city council is a great way to meet local activists.
Pursue your interests in life and people you’re going to hit it off with will be along the way.
Yeah unfortunately most of my interests are stuff that are done solo. Im also not sure if those interests became my interests because i have been solo most of my life. Moved around allot as a kid. That’s why I want to bridge out to new things.
- Linux
- Comic books
- Reading novels
- Electronic Engineering
- Video Games
Hey! you sound pretty cool! :D
Book club or maybe even some sort of 3d printing meetup? I’ve always found that the people that are interested in those probably would hit the other items on your list.
Board game groups and board game cafes are great for that!
No they’re horrible environments for meeting on socializing with other people.
If you’ve ever been to a socializing board game night, you would be aware that there’s effectively zero chance to communicate, talk, have a conversation - a group of people can’t focus on two things at once.
We must be going to different ones because there’s loads of down-time in most games and people would have a smoke break and just hang out with food and drinks post games.
Board game cafes is my 1st choice for social connections when arriving to a new country and I make friends every time. Never failed me once.
Dungeons & Dragons is one, for the sufficiently geeky.
This one is interesting as don’t you need friends already to play?
Most game shops host some games that are open to people signing up.
At one of my local stores, they specifically have the “D&D Adventure League” once a week. It does have a $5 entry fee.
If you want to start an irl group, yeah. If you’re joining an existing group, no though. Fully online is obviously the easiest place to find groups looking for players, but you can also head down to your local gaming store. I’ve seen bulletin boards before with flyers looking for players, but can probably just ask the people working there if they know of any.
Could also check online forums for your local community, maybe even make a post asking if any gaming groups have openings for irl players.
there are actually lots of groups that attempt to rectify this exact problem.
Pathfinder is a tabletop RPG that has a large following and focuses on the ability to jump in and out of groups and games.
Find your nearest game store and see what hobbies show up there. There might be a Warhammer group, DnD, starwars miniatures, magic, or maybe just random board games.
IIRC, you can get into public games on roll20. I also know Lemmy has an instance dedicated to TTRPGs; do they have any kind of game matchup community?
I came here to say Dungeons & Dragons. People of all ages and walks of life play.
Just throwing out a suggestion: choir.
Never tried it myself, but I have heard a lot of people build good relationships there.
Without bonus points: climbing. It’s always done in groups, the community is very open and you spend a lot of time just talking.
Basically you show up to a local climbing gym, try a boulder, some guy tries it after you, you say something like “I think you need to switch hands here”, you start chatting, ask him about outdoor climbing in the area, he says that he’s going to a nice stop this weekend, invites you to join, you go and hang out with people all day. It really is that simple.
If you have any interest is medieval things check out the Society of Creative Anachronism. www.sca.org
Even if you only want to meet new nerdy\geeky people. As long as you don’t mind wearing silly clothing.
This is somewhat dependent on living close enough to a city.
This is very cool. I think I have seen some people that do this at the Scarborough Ren Fair down here.
as one with limited mobility, i have made friends at the local, extremely small, music venue. tickets at the door are $20, beer is cheap, and everyone is super friendly.
because its a small place, the owner lets me take a chair with me when i am going to one of the stages that has no seating (i use a cane; its hard to stand for long periods). i usually sit next to the merch tables, and the friends of the bands usually strike up conversation.
this is a suuuuuper small place. it has 2-3 stages (depending on the night), but they are really close together, so only one band at a time can play (two stages are outside because the building is so small). even if its not music, go to really small local places that get decent crowds - they are a lot more personable.
That’s interesting how do you get to know people? Doesn’t the music make it hard to hear people? I feel like in that scenario i would go listen to music and have a good time but would still be alone in a crowd.
usually a band plays for ~30-45m - enjoying music time - and ~15m-1h (depending on the setup for that night) of downtime for chatting.
Oh that’s cool i guess i didn’t think of it as live music only. I was picturing a place where they blast a DJ or playlist way to loud between bands playing.
You are in Dallas? The main redeeming quality of Texas is the music. I wholeheartedly agree with this suggestion.
Also going out to the same places at the same time can pay off, you will make acquaintances and some may become friends. I see a group of old guys at the cafe I go to for coffee, pretty sure they are only friends because they go get breakfast at the Cuban place and ended up talking and sitting together.
I will say though, almost all my friends I met as adult came from work or from them going out with someone in my family. The medium level friends you are probably looking for. Do you not have work?
Your local discgolf club / community if you’re into that.
Archery. Relatively cheap sport to get into (no consumable bullets).
As for limited mobility, that depends on what you mean, wheelchair - not a problem, upper body - maybe a problem, depending on the extent. Crossbows can solve the strength part, but if you can’t aim, that will be a bit harder.
Kind of building on the D&D subject, if you look up your local game stores that have playspace, they probably have a calendar on their website listing lots of “Open Play” events or something similar. Mine also has craft/hobby nights.
You normally just show up to these and play.
The card and army based games may expect you to have your own stuff, but I would get in touch with somebody because a lot of the time there’s going to be somebody who will let you try the game with their stuff and teach you how to play in hopes of getting you interested long-term.
Join a group thing you like.
If you are musical or like music maybe find a local weekly jam or open mic. Play some tunes or just go and enjoy. Typically a very welcoming and open community and supportive scene, at least everywhere I’ve been.
