I think it's an age old question: How to make friends as an adult. Though, I think quite uncommon for someone to ask that at 22... But I legit have no idea.
I think considering how much I complain about the same things, some people might know this already, but I got my undergrad degree almost a year ago now. I studied abroad in the UK, and after finishing, moved back to my "hometown". I use that term loosely because I honestly never lived there too long, and the years I did were pretty miserable. I have no interest in reconnecting with anyone I knew from that time, let's keep it at that for now. But honestly, I literally don't even know anyone here outside of family and family friends.
For context, I live in a town of a little under half a million people. Which isn't that small. But culturally, it's not like the US or the UK to a lesser extent, where you'll find a "community" for whatever niche interest you have. To give an example, I've been interested in getting into tabletop roleplaying games like DnD for a while after joining a few online gaming groups and after hours of research I found.... one shop that sold board games that, supposedly had a few groups come in and play very occasionally. I've tried and I've tried, I even asked around a few local message boards, but the whole "Find a club to join" approach (which in my experience has been flimsy enough in other places I've lived in) is pretty much impossible here. I'm not doing a masters for now. I am going to be interacting with more people at work, but mostly they'll be just passing by.
I've been playing around with it so much, but honestly, at this point, the only options I can even remotely think of are:
- Tinder (no luck there, and I honestly hate using it for reasons I won't get into right here)
- Going to bars/clubs alone (kind of creepy, and it would still leave me having to approach random people, which is socially somewhat taboo here, not to mention anxiety)
- Maybe going to cafes, bookstores and such alone. But that's all the issues with bars and clubs times ten, since it's even weirder to chat up strangers there, no one wants to be bothered in that setting.
And that's..... literally it. It's honestly getting me down a lot, since while I can do a lot in terms of self-improvement, socially, I feel like I'm in a hole that's impossible to climb out of
I think considering how much I complain about the same things, some people might know this already, but I got my undergrad degree almost a year ago now. I studied abroad in the UK, and after finishing, moved back to my "hometown". I use that term loosely because I honestly never lived there too long, and the years I did were pretty miserable. I have no interest in reconnecting with anyone I knew from that time, let's keep it at that for now. But honestly, I literally don't even know anyone here outside of family and family friends.
For context, I live in a town of a little under half a million people. Which isn't that small. But culturally, it's not like the US or the UK to a lesser extent, where you'll find a "community" for whatever niche interest you have. To give an example, I've been interested in getting into tabletop roleplaying games like DnD for a while after joining a few online gaming groups and after hours of research I found.... one shop that sold board games that, supposedly had a few groups come in and play very occasionally. I've tried and I've tried, I even asked around a few local message boards, but the whole "Find a club to join" approach (which in my experience has been flimsy enough in other places I've lived in) is pretty much impossible here. I'm not doing a masters for now. I am going to be interacting with more people at work, but mostly they'll be just passing by.
I've been playing around with it so much, but honestly, at this point, the only options I can even remotely think of are:
- Tinder (no luck there, and I honestly hate using it for reasons I won't get into right here)
- Going to bars/clubs alone (kind of creepy, and it would still leave me having to approach random people, which is socially somewhat taboo here, not to mention anxiety)
- Maybe going to cafes, bookstores and such alone. But that's all the issues with bars and clubs times ten, since it's even weirder to chat up strangers there, no one wants to be bothered in that setting.
And that's..... literally it. It's honestly getting me down a lot, since while I can do a lot in terms of self-improvement, socially, I feel like I'm in a hole that's impossible to climb out of
