[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?
Asking for myself and those who are looking for what good
communities often provide: feeling of connection, purpose, a place
to go, etc.
Author : plemer
Score : 195 points
Date : 2023-05-30 18:30 UTC (4 hours ago)
| petecooper wrote:
| Male mental health support group. First attended in Nov 22, now a
| volunteer facilitating local meetings, and taking Peer Support
| Worker training course. Inevitably there's some tech help in the
| mix, but it's all worthwhile.
|
| https://www.mandown-cornwall.co.uk/
| foobarbecue wrote:
| I think community is the main reason (EDIT: I meant to say ONE OF
| THE main reasonS) people go to church, not for the magical guy-
| in-the-sky stuff.
|
| Someone here in my small beach city started a "Secular Society"
| which is a bit of a reaction to how religious this area is. The
| concept is that we don't have to be religious to get together and
| hang out. Only a couple meetings so far, but it's been fun!
| slothtrop wrote:
| I think it's a strong reason, but not the only one. Many people
| do, apparently, take comfort in things like faith and salvation
| (or a 'relationship' with God), creed, etc.
| higgins wrote:
| I love focusmate.com
|
| Less for the "i can't focus without some external
| accountability"-pitch it seems to market itself as and more for
| the serendipitous network of people doing interesting things
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Skate parks
| motohagiography wrote:
| Joined a fraternal organization. Meets once a month, 8mo a year.
| Made new friends I'm in touch with most days as a result. Shop
| around, ymmv, etc, but having a routine that maintains
| relationships yields benefits by itself.
| porcoda wrote:
| Sports (both playing in amateur leagues and attending local
| teams), seeing live music, and participating in local arts
| collectives. I tried computer related communities (hacker spaces,
| meetups, etc), but it always felt like it was just work in
| disguise or people trying to turn fun into resume fodder or
| networking for professional purposes. So I just try to find
| people with mutual interests that are orthogonal to my day job.
| librish wrote:
| My strong recommendation is to find an activity you genuinely
| enjoy. From personal experience if I go to a meet-up with the
| mindset that I'm only there to make friends I won't have any fun,
| I won't go back enough time that there's a chance that I'll
| actually form a connection.
| bsnnkv wrote:
| I live in Seattle, Cap Hill. Before I moved here and when I first
| moved here (from London) people told me that Seattle was a
| terrible place to make friends and build a community. My
| experience has been exactly the opposite; this has been the best
| place I've ever lived for making friends and building community,
| especially as a sober person.
|
| The order of importance, I have found community here in:
|
| - Swing dancing, both classes and going to shows with live jazz
| bands to dance (I was never a dancer before moving here)
|
| - Lifting (there are great locally owned gyms in this
| neighborhood)
|
| - Getting to know people who own or work at local businesses
|
| - People who have similar tech interests, that I meet from a
| mixture of the previous 3 places
|
| Finally, and I think this is a really important thing to do, I
| try to organize events, either in my home or in any one of the
| local parks in the summer, where friends I've made in different
| parts of my life all get together and also get to know each other
| Darkphibre wrote:
| Oh! I'm on the east side. I've been attending Brazillian Zouk
| classes, but I've been interested in swing. Where do you go?
|
| And I completely agree about event organization! It really
| introduces you to a wider swath of people than your initial
| search may have turned up.
|
| Way to go!
| vgel wrote:
| > Swing dancing
|
| Swing It Seattle? Me and my wife go to the wednesday dances :-)
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I think it depends on more factors than just location. I am
| older and live on the eastside of the Seattle metro area, and
| our neighbors have been generally unfriendly. When we first
| moved in we invited a number of neighbors to a backyard BBQ,
| and afterwards, none ever reached back out to us, and even
| worse, another became extremely aggressive towards us. It's
| been over four years since.
|
| We're thinking of moving, but housing prices are incredibly
| high and volatile.
| 98codes wrote:
| > Finally, and I think this is a really important thing to do,
| I try to organize events
|
| This is generally the thing Seattle is missing -- people that
| organize and then tell people to show up at X place on Y date.
| Most of the time, it's a million people that all say they would
| love to hang out more, but nobody ever makes solid plans.
| cmilton wrote:
| Location is going to significantly impact the number of
| opportunities. I love that about big cities, but I miss the
| peacefulness of the country.
| shp0ngle wrote:
| One holy apostolic Catholic Church
| JeanV-pip wrote:
| Can you be more specific?
| bwb wrote:
| Ultimate frisbee:)
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Eaaasy:
|
| - Meetup.com - If you don't find a community for something you
| want to do, then start one!
|
| - Local sports clubs
|
| - Volunteering
|
| - Start going to EDM parties - pretty soon you'll see the same
| people. Say, "hi".
|
| - Facebook groups for pretty much everything.
|
| - Do what kids in the 80's did, and many still do: go to the
| local playground, and ask if you could also play with them.
|
| You're not too old, you're not too "different". Don't be a pussy,
| and get out of your head.
| robbyking wrote:
| When my mom moved to a new city I recommended she look for a
| hiking Meetup as a way to make some friends, and she ended up
| meeting her future husband there!
| plugin-baby wrote:
| Isn't this the plot to Back to the Future?
| robbyking wrote:
| > _Do what kids in the 80 's did, and many still do: go to the
| local playground, and ask if you could also play with them._
|
| I was a stay at home dad for a couple years, and I made a lot
| of long term friends this way. In one case I saw a guy riding
| his bike with a 2yo on the back so we chased them down and
| asked if they wanted to hang out and do bike nerd stuff
| together. That was almost 6 years ago and we're still friends
| the-printer wrote:
| I've found a profound virtue, sense of responsibility and
| selflessness since I've taken an oath to be in the company of a
| distinct group of men in my community five times daily at a
| maximum (or a minimum, depending on the circumstance).
|
| We don't gather for the sake of gathering with each other, but
| for the sake of the shared oath that consists of various
| practices and beliefs, one of which _requires_ that we gather.
|
| And the venue of this gathering is at enough locations that I can
| have this experience far from home even. The sense of community
| is transcends the boundaries of my locale.
|
| I'm a Muslim. The place is a Masjid.
| pugworthy wrote:
| Local tap house and Burning Man - including Homebrew 4A Homebrew,
| which is essentially a neighborhood tap house at Burning Man.
| torehan wrote:
| My neighborhood! I got my dog during the pandemic and its been a
| great way to meet my neighbors and also the people at the dog
| park (many of whom are also my neighbors). If you start hanging
| out in the same spots regularly you'll eventually meet people to
| talk to.
|
| Having a dog is a huge plus since dogs are generally playful and
| can be a great way to start a conversation.
| clpm4j wrote:
| Exercise - gym classes, biking groups, running groups, triathlon
| groups.
| jdmoreira wrote:
| Old school Magic the Gathering / Premodern. Bunch of dudes around
| the world that like playing an old game with old cards. I travel
| internationally for tournaments once a year or so. And travel a
| lot within Sweden.
| jonah wrote:
| Volunteer public service organizations.
|
| Some years ago I was looking for an activity to get into that met
| the following needs: * Helps others *
| Physically active * Outdoors / in nature * Requires
| specialized skills * Gives back to the community
|
| I was entertaining things like the local trail building groups
| when an article about our local Search and Rescue team mentioned
| they were having a recruiting meeting the next week. I applied
| and was accepted.
|
| It's a highly rewarding activity - literally saving peoples lives
| at times - with a high-calibre of like-minded people from an
| incredibly diverse array of backgrounds.
|
| I've recently moved away though and in my new area, I've joined
| the volunteer fire department which has a lot of the same
| features and benefits.
| bombcar wrote:
| The best thing about getting into one volunteer thing is you
| find out about tons of other ones; the people who volunteer
| often do so in various semi-related groups. And you can end up
| with some really fun volunteering opportunities.
| buffalobuffalo wrote:
| The key to building relationships with people is that you need to
| spend time with them. A lot of time. That's a big reason why it's
| so easy when you're young; you're constantly put in classrooms
| with the same people.
|
| It works pretty well as an adult too. Take an in person class.
| Something 1-2 days a week for a couple months. You meet people
| and you learn something.
| nja4 wrote:
| HONK!-style bands - street/brass bands - you don't need to be
| good - you can learn an instrument and just hang out and play fun
| music. Through mine, we've played at Mardi Gras (Chewbacchus),
| Timber!, Burning Man events, Comicons, birthdays, weddings, etc.
|
| The Seattle festival is this weekend, see:
| https://honkfestwest.org/
| uranium wrote:
| I've been a member of a number of juggling clubs over the years.
| If you're not into juggling, I'm sure there are other kinds of
| clubs around, but if you're a juggler or juggling-curious,
| they're great. They tend to be super open to new folks, whether
| they can juggle or not. Often folks would go out to eat afterward
| [depending on the time of the club meeting]; at one club they
| even had a weekly movie outing afterward for a long time.
|
| The larger juggling community is great too--there are little
| festivals and larger conventions all over the world, with great
| shows but also great social scenes.
|
| I met my spouse at a university juggling club. Neither of us
| attended the university, but we were both club members, as were
| lots of our friends [after a while, anyway].
| tombert wrote:
| I guess I'm a little weird, because while I have plenty of
| friends (generally former coworkers), I generally haven't felt
| the need to be part of a community since I got married.
|
| I like my wife, presumably she likes me, and having a person that
| cohabits with me that I get along with has honestly done a good
| enough job at making me feel a connection and purpose.
| cmilton wrote:
| I think most of us would like to a part of that type of
| relationship. Usually you can find these potential partners in
| communities.
| milancurcic wrote:
| My son died at birth in August of 2022. A month later, my wife
| found a group of 30-some Loss Dads who at the time met monthly
| via Zoom. I quickly bonded with all the Dads there, despite most
| of us never having met each other in person. I attribute our
| strong bond to us sharing a rare and intense life experience, as
| well as to the fact that it's still difficult to find support,
| and even willingness to talk about, with friends and family who
| have not experienced child loss. Fast forward to today, we have
| an active Discord server and meet on Zoom bi-weekly. The group
| has also recently filed for a non-profit status and has raised
| funds and materials to help grieving parents as well as
| hospitals.
|
| If you're a grieving Dad and are looking for support from other
| grieving Dads, please email me at milancurcic@hey.com.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I mean.. what do you like to do? Go find a community that does
| that thing. You should already have something you do "for you",
| so regardless of whether you connect to the community or not,
| you're still getting something out of it.
|
| I would also say to be hyper-aware around communities that try to
| make a "second family". They can be fine, but can also lead to
| some toxic attachment/codependency and result in some gnarly
| outcomes. Moderation is key.
| gabugabu wrote:
| Role-Playing Game conventions. Absolutely astounding how much
| community I've found there. Headed to North Texas RPG Con this
| weekend, in fact. It's amazing what using your imagination around
| a table with a bunch of fellow geeks can do for your feeling of
| belonging in the universe.
| owenpalmer wrote:
| Sports. I still meet with friends from middle school for
| volleyball games, and another friend of mine hosts a weekly
| soccer game. We usually go out for tacos afterwards. It's a great
| time
| O5vYtytb wrote:
| Ultimate (Frisbee)!
|
| Been playing for 15 years at all levels, it's amazing!
| stefanka wrote:
| For me it's Capoeira; cool Music, learning petrified, good
| workout, less competitive than other marital arts and great
| community
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| I played tennis in a rec league a long time ago. It was not
| community but a substitute for light social interaction.
|
| I guess similar things exist for Golf and pickleball.
|
| I grew up in India and now live in the U.S.
|
| Socializing or being a part of a community is surprisingly very
| very hard.
| 3minus1 wrote:
| The nice thing about pickleball is that it's often drop in
| play, so you can show up whenever is convenient for you and
| play with random people. This is indeed a light social
| interaction, but the people who regular eventually get to know
| each other. Where I live there is a strong pickleball
| community.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I know some Indians and Pakistani who play pickleball.
|
| I know rather more Indians who play cricket. I think you have
| to have critical mass to get a cricket team going though... Not
| everywhere has enough interest.
| senthil_rajasek wrote:
| Socializing with "in groups" like Indians getting to know
| Indians is not what I was referring to in my original
| comment.
|
| I was talking about socializing outside of "in groups" which
| is what I found challenging.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Open source projects. I am building a side project in Rust and
| contribute to crates along the way. I also do 3d printing of
| stuff - I'm building a device to freeze air (co2 waypoint hit,
| next oxygen and nitrogen) using only thermoelectric chips and all
| the enclosures etc I'm designing in build123d a parametric cad
| system in Python. So I have a lot of discord communities that I
| interact with and it's been great. Since I started working from
| home 6 years ago I've also built up a network of nerd friends in
| my local community / neighborhood that I interact with regularly.
| In fact remote work has let me build a real community in my life.
| Being very senior your relationships at work can be very
| transactional. Being locked into a human hamster wheel chicken
| coop with a bunch of people who need something from me all work
| day then the rest of my day commuting and being exhausted meant I
| was very lonely.
| Daniel_92 wrote:
| Church. If you've never been, give it a few tries. Often the
| people suck, but if you find the right niche its lifechanging.
| nickelcitymario wrote:
| Not to be preachy, but I'd second this. I don't really attend
| anymore, but for a while, my local church was a safe haven from
| the stresses of both my professional and personal life.
|
| That said, over time I found it impossible to reconcile my
| church's teachings with my own values, and haven't found
| another that I'd be more comfortable with. But I would never
| deny that they were a crucial part of me rebuilding my life
| when I was on the ropes.
|
| For anyone who isn't particularly religious, if you live in a
| fairly big city, you can probably find some faith group that
| aligns with your values, whatever they may be. In smaller towns
| and communities, you kinda get what you get.
| sovietmudkipz wrote:
| Bouldering gym and various meetup groups
| mcook08 wrote:
| F3 https://f3nation.com
|
| I was feeling very lonely working remote. We moved to a Memphis
| TN to be closer to family and I was struggling with feeling like
| an outsider. I grew up playing sports and tried CrossFit but
| hated paying so much for a gym. F3 workouts are free and I
| thought I was going for the fitness aspect, but the fellowship is
| what really stuck. Guys hung out after workouts and it was great
| to meet so many guys from so many different walks of life.
| uoaei wrote:
| I've heard these quickly become alt-right incubation machines.
| The "fellowship" becomes "brotherhood" and then you got a cult-
| militia going pretty easy after that.
| mcook08 wrote:
| There's no ignoring how the pictures can look externally. For
| example, I never imagined myself wearing a rucksack for
| fitness. In my experience though, the community is filled
| with men from all walks of life, political views, etc. I
| suppose like any group, its local membership is what most
| defines your experience. I've personally met lots of guys
| that I would have never met at church, work, etc because I
| worked out with them at F3.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Hobbies. I got into high power rocketry and met people online and
| then went to some meetups of local clubs in my area. There's a
| couple regional events I attend too. It's nice to have a
| community of friends with shared interests but not so physically
| close I have to interact daily.
| NickC25 wrote:
| I live in a very transient city with very little tech industry,
| which also happens to be a city where half the population leaves
| every April/May through October/November.
|
| Community has been hard, especially meeting new folks. There have
| been a few community tech events that have come and gone, and
| I've been lucky enough to meet a few friends through that.
|
| I joined a gym 4 years ago, and a lot of my friends now I've met
| through that gym.
| sgt wrote:
| I can't imagine anything worse than going to the gym. What do
| you do there? Walk on a treadmill like a mouse in a laboratory?
|
| Also, you come back starving because you've burned calories,
| probably eating way more than you should due to being famished.
|
| And it's also extremely boring. I've tried it once or twice,
| but I just can't handle it.
|
| Genuinely interested in how some people manage to consistently
| keep going to the gym.
| skulk wrote:
| Cardio exercise is absolutely dreadful. Try lifting weights,
| heavy ones (after studying form via YouTube videos and
| verifying that your form is correct on lighter weights).
| Pushing your limits is neither boring nor time-consuming. 45
| minutes is enough for a vigorous workout.
| duopixel wrote:
| Regular gym goer for 20+ years here. It eventually becomes
| difficult _not_ going to the gym, on days I can't exercise I
| feel restless, like a dog that hasn't gone out for his walk.
|
| Food, I eat between 4K and 5k calories per day and I'm close
| to 10% body fat. I love eating.
|
| Re: boring. Lift heavy, it's supposed to be challenging. It
| should require focus and concentration. Don't use machines,
| those _are_ boring.
|
| I would never go if it were exclusively for aesthetic,
| strength, or health benefits. For me it lifts my mood like
| nothing else, anytime I feel like not going I know it is my I
| unexercised mind telling me stories, once I start moving
| weight it's like changing a radio station in my head and the
| negative affect fades away.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I used to feel exactly like you, until I started for health
| reasons, and found I couldn't have been more wrong.
|
| Weight training is the most cognitively demanding thing I've
| ever done, not at all mindless or boring. Using proper form
| and technique is essentially a martial art, and takes
| tremendous skill and focus, and can advance in skill
| limitlessly. As a competitive strongman, I'm also always
| pushing my skills by lifting and carrying new objects that
| require different skills and techniques. Some "feats of
| strength" have taken years of training and strategizing to
| accomplish. Walking on a treadmill is still boring to me and
| I avoid it. For the gym to be fun and engaging it needs to be
| both cognitively and physically demanding, yet possible to
| accomplish.
| michaelrpeskin wrote:
| If you're going to a "treadmill" gym, yeah, you're right. But
| a small powerlifting or weightlifting gym is different. You
| have to have a spotter or partner, so you'll workout with
| someone while you're there. And if you're doing it right, you
| have more downtime between sets than time working, so you end
| up chatting and making friends.
| m463 wrote:
| Many people go to the gym as a means of achieving their
| goals.
|
| If you have health goals in mind, there are a lot of things
| at the gym that support them.
|
| For example, one friend was overweight and it was recommended
| that in addition to cardio, he have strength training. He
| goes a couple nights a week and goes through the strength
| training stations. He's lost 7 inches on his waist in the
| last few months.
|
| Another friend goes for the exercise classes
|
| I did the gym years ago, but nowadays I bought a used
| stairmaster for cheap and set it up in my house. I read for
| pleasure and do it while on the stairmaster. I also hike with
| others frequently, but days I can't this works for me.
| michaelrpeskin wrote:
| Expanding on the gym comment. I've been going to small gyms for
| 20+ years and always loved the community there. When our gym
| shut down for lockdowns, I had enough space and equipment to
| invite folks to train in my driveway. I now host folks every
| evening to do workouts. Great for community! We haven't even
| thought of going back to a gym even though everything is open
| again. We like the community that we've grown into.
| pongo1231 wrote:
| > I joined a gym 4 years ago, and a lot of my friends now I've
| met through that gym.
|
| Is it common for strangers to actually approach each other in
| the gym? At least here everyone goes from machine to machine
| listening to music and making as little contact as possible and
| the few times I've been approached was just to ask how many
| sets I have left. I've been surprised just how much that seems
| to differ from place to place.
| joeevans1000 wrote:
| Festivals.
|
| Any kind of festival. Music festival. Art festival. Craft
| festival.
|
| Everyone drops their guard and you can talk to them.
|
| Another one you can do: volunteer at a shelter. If you are still
| hiding from covid, try volunteering for Habitat For Humanity.
| Less people interaction on the latter.
| nullityrofl wrote:
| My girlfriend used Bumble BFF to find friends and the friends she
| found had partners. We found a community surprisingly quickly.
| But we explicitly wanted the opposite of what it seems many here
| want: more friends in tech. We wanted a more balanced community.
|
| Now we have friends we hike with, mountain bike with, ski with,
| go mushroom foraging, host dinners, play trivia, etc.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Reached out to a group of acquittances (with no kids) a few years
| back to see if anyone wanted to play weekly D&D. 6 years later, I
| am now happy to call them friends.
| agentultra wrote:
| I shovelled snow for the older lady who lived around the corner.
| She had the same given name as my mother. We talked shop about
| gardening. Occasionally she would invite my kids over for tea and
| cookies. We traded books.
|
| Other neighbours would be working on projects in their yard. I
| offered to help. We get to talking. Some of us had kids around
| the same age who started hanging out.
|
| I show movies in my yard when the weather is nice and invite
| people over. We make a big potluck dinner and hang out.
|
| I care a lot about global warming and climate change. One of the
| biggest impacts we can have as individuals is at the local level.
| Help out with municipal elections and support councillors who are
| going to help reduce traffic, make streets safer, help develop
| community infrastructure, etc. Go to zoning by-law meetings and
| press for mixed-use neighbourhoods. There's lots you can do here.
|
| I also play music and enjoy board gaming. I meet other musicians
| through gigs or friends and we jam together, etc. I've joined
| gaming groups at my local game store on and off when I get into a
| good game.
|
| There are lots of ways to get out and get local. Start helping
| people in your community get what they need is a good way to
| start.
| jonah wrote:
| Games.
|
| My girlfriend has made a group of very close friends by playing
| scrabble with them every Thursday for many years.
|
| It seems like it's a great context to have a scheduled time to
| spend time together.
| niklearnstodev wrote:
| Personally: -sports: climbing gyms/trips/facebook groups/etc,
| bike groups (not exclusively biking alone), hiking trips, etc
|
| Anecdotally: -drama clubs/local theatre productions -run clubs:
| while running is typically fairly isolated, there are social run
| clubs in cities that often go for a drink (no booze necessary)
| post-run -book clubs: random collections of people that discuss a
| book together -dinner clubs: sharing food with folks in a way
| where different people cook for others in turn -partying: most
| places have a community of folks that enjoy dancing and/or
| recreationals
|
| Note that I believe that the strong relationships can come from
| overcoming a shared struggle, so if you can think of something
| that's difficult and with one or more other person/people, you
| will probably form a community around it over time (co-founders
| and cohorts are a great example).
| ghaff wrote:
| At least on the coasts, clubs that do outdoors activities are
| fairly common. Doesn't need to be hardcore. There's the
| Appalachian Mountain Club in the Northeast US which dates to
| the 1800s. There are (unsurprisingly) at least a couple
| different Northern CA/PNW clubs though I'm less familiar with
| what they offer.
| loriverkutya wrote:
| I joined a local Iaido club.
| deeg wrote:
| My local gaming group has a number of people who have found
| community amongst our members. We advertise on our Facebook page
| so check for a group near you.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| 2 places:
|
| 1. family and extended family. Not everyone, but some are great.
|
| 2. Communities based on your hobbies or passions; for example, I
| ride motorcycles and I built a small team that go on tours across
| Europe and I am in progress to do the same for adventure/offroad
| bike tours. You can do many others, from hiking or fishing or
| dancing to flying sports planes, depending on what you love and
| what you can afford.
| yujian wrote:
| I run community events for tech interest communities (AICamp,
| MLOps Community)
|
| It's work related, but not directly
|
| Outside of that, I don't really have much of a community. I
| sometimes go to local meetup groups for fun. However, I feel like
| these are usually a waste of time -\\_(tsu)_/-
| some_furry wrote:
| I just hang out with furries online and am increasingly involved
| in local furry meet-ups. 10/10 lots of fun.
| Glench wrote:
| I recently joined a local Plum Village meditation community as
| well as a contact improvisation dance community! It's great to
| see the same faces every time and making connections.
| meken wrote:
| My apartment complex has a hot tub. I spent many nights there
| meeting a few neighbors. From there, some of us played
| Pickleball. I started noticing a few other neighbors playing, so
| I started a group chat. Now a bunch of us play 2-3 times per week
| and the group is growing
|
| There's a local developer community that hosts meetups every
| month that I'm a part of. They also have a slack group
|
| I'm in a slack spiritual group. I don't really care about the
| spiritual aspect, it's kind of interesting, I guess. They're just
| very thoughtful interesting people and now some of my closest
| friends
| htsh wrote:
| I moved back to NYC after a long time away, and to a different
| part of town than where many of my old friends live, and getting
| a dog considerably improved my connection with the folks around
| me.
|
| And of course, as others have said, volunteering.
| laingc wrote:
| Have you considered starting a family?
| cja wrote:
| Creating humans to solve your problems sounds unethical.
| laingc wrote:
| "I'm lonely!"
|
| "Have a family?"
|
| "Sounds unethical..."
|
| This is an absolutely demented perspective.
| cja wrote:
| If you can't fix your loneliness in another way then you
| may not be ready to be a good parent.
|
| Separately, is it ethical to decide on behalf of another
| person that they should be born? (I sentence you to
| life...)
| actinium226 wrote:
| When I can, I like to try to find local classes in something.
| That way you get to see a group of people more regularly, as
| opposed to one-off meetups. I've taken classes in acting, swing
| dancing, salsa. There's probably some cooking classes around, and
| given my local creative writing too. Hope that gives you some
| ideas.
| idlewords wrote:
| Fostering rescue animals has a double payoff-the animals
| themselves keep you company, and you'll meet a lot of people
| through the shelter or rescue you volunteer at. It's also one of
| the few ways to get to hang out with a litter of juvenile
| kittens.
| codeadict wrote:
| Gardening/permaculture communities. Also, my kids preschool
| parents, its small, at least 80% of the parents are immigrants
| with another language other than English. We all share similar
| values and the struggles of learning the language. Before that
| mountaineering and Linux User Group where the places to have good
| friends.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Intermural sports teams - highly recommend.
|
| At the right gym you'll also find community.
|
| Separately just being a regular at a bar is a very good way to
| get to know people, again you need to find the right spot.
|
| I'm not religious but I know many people who find community
| there. Other places I've seen friends have success are gaming
| guilds/circles and fraternities (Mason lodges, etc.)
|
| Speaking of which I grow my friend circle by meeting friends of
| friends and then developing my own first order friendships with
| them.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| 1- Beer. Way back when I first started working in Portland, a few
| of us got together after work every Thursday for beer. People
| moved on to other jobs, but some kept in touch, and over time we
| built up a nice core of people, maybe a dozen on average, who
| would get together every Thursday. New coworkers always welcome,
| and some of those would become regulars themselves. It kind of
| fell apart, however, towards the end of the pandemic when the
| nucleus of our group passed suddenly from cancer. We still try to
| get together, but it isn't _quite_ the same.
|
| 2- Neighborhood. We moved in this neighborhood about 10 years ago
| when all the houses were being built, and we socialized with the
| other families buying homes. Now we know almost all of the
| neighbors within a 5 minute walk. Aside from a couple weirdos,
| most people are really nice even if sometimes a bit shy. It's
| great to be on cordial terms with the people who live around you.
|
| 2a- Poker. The guys of the neighborhood get together regularly to
| play Texas Hold 'em. Not for a lot of money, just to have
| something to do and people to connect with.
|
| 2b- Bunco. The gals of the neighborhood also have a regular
| gathering, generally audible for an eighth of a mile away, Bunco
| must be the funniest game in the world.
| exabrial wrote:
| Mountain Biking
| joeevans1000 wrote:
| Get a housemate or two or move in with some. Make sure they are
| doing it because at least partly they like having housemates. In
| other words, you don't want to move in with silent bob who's just
| doing it because of financial reasons. Lots of folks like having
| housemates for the community.
| [deleted]
| manesioz wrote:
| Church
| torvald wrote:
| Hackerspaces!
|
| Check this list [0], maybe there is one close to you - and if you
| by any chance live in Oslo - swing by Hackeriet [1].
|
| [0] https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces
|
| [1] https://hackeriet.no/index.en.html
| jmcdowell wrote:
| Out of interest, do you find many working on software projects
| at hacker spaces? Each one I've looked at online seems to have
| more of a focus on hardware, electronics, metal/wood working
| with little mention of software. The caveat is that I've only
| really looked at UK based ones so this may be regional.
|
| I've been trying to find a space that has a similar energy as
| my old university CS lab. There was a bit of a perfect time in
| my final year, whereafter 2+ years most people seemed to know
| each other and at the same time everyone was specialising in
| their degree. So you could walk into the lab and find people
| working deep in their own game engine code, others would be
| working on ML models and others may be working on mobile apps
| or websites. But with a sense of overall camaraderie and
| sharing of what you're working on and why.
|
| I suppose it just sounds like I'm describing something like a
| WeWork but when I've attended those they seem much more
| employee focused and I rarely saw employees of different
| companies talk to each other.
|
| I also realise that some of what I describe is often fulfilled
| by talking to others at your workplace, I'm fully remote so I
| am missing out on that part.
|
| If anyone knows of anything similar to what I describe above in
| or near London feel free to reach out to the email in my
| profile!
| squirrelman wrote:
| The "open source club" events at the Chaitin School [0] sound
| like what you're looking for, but I don't think there are
| events on over the summer.
|
| [0]: https://chaitinschool.org/
| argulane wrote:
| Hackerspaces are awesome!
|
| Im quite active at https://k-space.ee in Tallinn, Estonia.
| chris1993 wrote:
| * * *
| silisili wrote:
| My neighborhood. When we moved in we sat out front every evening,
| and made small talk with every single person who walked by. Some
| were caught off guard, some kinda just waved and moved on, but
| most stopped to talk.
|
| What's interesting is that people who had lived in that
| neighborhood nearly 20 years together had never talked, and met
| for the first time as both stopped to chat at nearly the same
| time.
|
| Then we started with small gifts, usually food because my wife
| cooks exotic things for people to try. Now we get random gifts,
| usually food or fruits or some flower or plant.
|
| Now we have little get togethers inviting each other, text to ask
| if need anything from the store, etc. And all it took was being
| willing to sit outside for a couple hours each night and say hi.
| cj wrote:
| This worked for me, too (except I'm usually the one walking by
| rather than the one waving people over to chat).
|
| If you don't like small talk, a great way to interact with
| neighbors is to offer your help, e.g. if you see someone doing
| work outside, gardening, etc... offer to lend a hand!
| brendev wrote:
| I've got a similar situation here in Baltimore. The community
| I'm a part of here is like nothing I've ever experienced. We
| actually have a neighborhood telegram chat of ~70 people where
| we post about neighborhood events, parties, etc. My wife and I
| have a great circle of friends within this community and it led
| us to buy a house a few years back(before the market got all
| wild). We just had our first kid, and there's plenty of other
| newborns popping up so I'm looking forward to seeing them all
| grow up together!
| bombcar wrote:
| It's sad that modern American yards are so unfriendly to
| sitting in your front yard, but that can be easily fixed, even
| within the boundaries of over-zealous HOAs or towns.
|
| Just make a cute little "gate" (it doesn't even need the gate)
| with flowers at the end of the walkway near the sidewalk, and
| add in a table and some chairs (or move them out when you go to
| sit).
|
| Being at the sidewalk vs being 20-40 feet away on a porch makes
| a huge difference.
| mahathu wrote:
| I agree. In my opinion, it's another manifestation of
| individualism promoted by the capitalist system in the US -
| in urban design, in this case. Another commenter pointed out
| how they only see their neighbour when they both walk to or
| from their car at the same time. It sounds sad to me, but
| some might prefer it that way.
| lannisterstark wrote:
| >My neighborhood
|
| I have a question. What kind of place do you live in? Is it
| houses that are apart by some distance -lawns/treelines
| separating y'all etc-, is it houses that are built next to each
| other, is it duplexes/townhomes etc?
| pedantsamaritan wrote:
| This question alludes to thoughts about front-yard design
| space. As houses get closer together, residents still want
| both connection and privacy. A raised area (porch, patio,
| etc), frequently provides this. With a raised porch that goes
| right to the sidewalk, a resident could move their chair
| close to the edge to talk to pedestrians or move chair away
| from sidewalk toward house for less talking.
|
| The playborhood people did a similar thing to GP: "Mike also
| made another simple-but-radical move: In a neighborhood in
| which front yards are for admiration only, Mike installed a
| picnic table, close to the sidewalk, where he and his family
| often sat, so that people walking by would have to talk to
| them." https://archive.is/uLa77#selection-749.0-749.254
| silisili wrote:
| Excellent question. I live in a neighborhood where each house
| has 1 acre of land, so a couple hundred feet between houses?
| Maybe 100-150 houses in the neighborhood. Perfectly flat, few
| to no big trees or shrubs that would obscure a house - it's
| in a desert, after all.
|
| What's funny is I picked it because I was tired of having bad
| neighbors in my previous city. I told my wife this way, I can
| have bad neighbors, but at least they'll be bad neighbors way
| over there (pointing). Nearly everyone I've met in this
| neighborhood said that they picked it for the same reason.
| And they are the best neighbors I've ever had. So...try to
| find a neighborhood full of people who want to be away from
| neighbors?
| quicklime wrote:
| In a typical evening, how many neighbors walk by?
|
| I used to live in a suburb with literally 10x the density,
| and the only time I ever saw my immediate neighbors was if
| we both happened to be walking from our front doors to our
| cars at the same time.
| silisili wrote:
| As it gets very hot here, people generally only go out
| for walks at two times of day, which makes it easier -
| early morning, and evening. In a typical evening, we'd
| probably see 10-15 people go by. Most walking a dog or
| pushing a stroller around. We don't have sidewalks here -
| there's so little traffic everyone just walks in the
| street.
| aj_g wrote:
| Beautiful. Does it ever feel challenging in any way, like
| you're fighting against a social norm?
| silisili wrote:
| A little, but not terribly much. Maybe it's an age thing, I'm
| not that old (around 40), but I don't feel weird talking to
| people I don't know - I quite enjoy it. In fact, I felt
| rather sad since the rise of smartphones, because a lot of
| places I use to get small talk(barber, airport, etc),
| everyone is busy or feigning being busy. But when people are
| just out enjoying the air, they are more free to chat.
|
| The biggest thing to put aside are first impressions/biases -
| ie, treating people that you wouldn't normally think you'd be
| friends with the same. As a lot of my neighborhood are older
| than we are, that was a lot of people. In a way it's like
| coworkers, you can't pick them, but some end up being great
| friends.
|
| It also helped to have a really outgoing child. She'd go
| riding her bike around the neighborhood, and a few people
| stopped by because "the little girl on the bike said I should
| come meet you guys."
|
| I will say it was easier, to me, to do so when first moving
| in. I personally would feel weird if I'd lived somewhere a
| long time and never bothered to meet anyone, then started
| acting more social out of nowhere. But that's probably just
| in my head.
| gervwyk wrote:
| Such a sweet idea! Really looking for ways to grow community in
| our neighborhood aswell.
| Fervicus wrote:
| I am curious. Which country do you live in?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I'm not the person you're replying to, but we did this in an
| LA suburb.
|
| Among other things that have resulted from it:
|
| One of our neighbors invites everyone over for 4th of July
| every year. We have a block party where we block off the
| street once or twice per year. Neighbors have been over for
| backyard parties, my wife goes to birthday lunches with the
| wives on the street, and there's a giant text thread where
| people ask for help/etc for things.
|
| During the first year of covid, we did a special neighborhood
| Halloween, where everyone on the block put out bags of candy
| for neighborhood kids to go house to house and pick up.
| mahathu wrote:
| > where everyone on the block put out bags of candy for
| neighborhood kids to go house to house and pick up.
|
| Is this usual in the region, or perhaps did I misunderstand
| you? Don't the kids usually walk up to the doors and ring,
| and then you personally hand out candy to them?
| silisili wrote:
| Southwestern USA.
|
| Which is kinda funny as my wife hates it and wants to move
| because gardening here is really hard-to-impossible, but she
| doesn't want to give up our great neighborhood, so we're at
| an impasse.
| bombcar wrote:
| Gardening should be possible in the southwest, but you may
| have to utilize greenhouses or whatever the opposite of one
| is. Much of the "desert" will bloom if you pour enough
| water on it (and drip irrigation does wonders).
|
| But you can't do a "midwest" style garden.
| silisili wrote:
| Right, and we're used to that style of gardening (and
| tropical, we've lived all over). Here the main problems
| are that the soil is completely garbage, it never rains,
| and there's too much sun. She's had limited success
| planting things in large bags full of garden soil,
| watering every day, and building a system of shades from
| the afternoon sun - it's just a big hassle compared to
| gardening in a lot of the eastern side of the US.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yep. The first can be repaired, the second compensated
| for, but the third is the killer. You either have to
| vastly move the growing season (growing in winter seems
| strange) or you have to learn new tricks that don't "feel
| right" like growing things up against a building to get
| shade half the day.
|
| Composting can be a great way to improve the soil, but it
| takes years to really get going. But if you're going to
| be there for years ...
|
| And maybe you could even get "donations" from neighbors!
| I know one person who setup compost jars for her
| neighbors to get more compostables.
| Fervicus wrote:
| Thanks, I love the idea of living in this kind of a
| neighborhood. I have been living in an apartment building
| for close to a decade now and I don't know a single person
| on my floor or in my building. I don't even know who my
| neighbor is.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Started doing this to a limited extent. For years I'd have
| never dreamed of doing this, as I did not want to feel obliged
| to casual acquaintances, i.e. I feared expectation of
| friendship that I did not want to reciprocate. Turns out most
| people are just happy to leave things casual. I don't mind
| small talk.
|
| Related to why I've had limited friendships. I've wanted fewer,
| high quality ones as overshooting my social needs is
| uncomfortable, and I'm a creature of habit. Used to overcorrect
| towards solitude and that backfires, but I've had friendships
| in the past where I dreaded having to meet.
| nostromo wrote:
| I'm prepared for this to be an unpopular opinion, but I'm glad
| my neighbors don't do this.
|
| I know my neighbors well enough. We check each other's mail
| when they're away and will help out in other ways.
|
| But I have lots of friends to keep up with outside of my
| neighborhood -- people I have a lot in common with -- my
| neighbors, not so much. If they wanted to talk with me each
| time I saw them coming or going, I would likely start actively
| avoiding them so I could get on my way.
| shakow wrote:
| Then just wave and move on, GP and his wife will not be
| sequestrating you to make you mingle.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| i'm sure you can just say hi and move on.
| irrational wrote:
| You would love my next door neighbors. They moved in the same
| week we did 2 years ago. We saw them when they first drove up
| and enters their garage (middle age couple). Since then,
| nobody has ever seen them. They never have lights on in their
| house at night. They never answer their door. They never open
| their garage and drive away. They never have packages or
| anything else delivered. They only way we know they are still
| alive is their trash bins go out and are taken back in every
| week (though nobody has ever seen them do it) and in the
| winter you can see the white smoke/condensation from their
| utility vents.
| joegahona wrote:
| It sounds like you're in the cohort of "some just waved and
| moved on."
| asim wrote:
| Struggled a lot. I grew up amongst an extended family of
| relatives. It was my community. Then I moved away. I also grew up
| on the internet and spent a lot of time moving between
| communities there.
|
| I am trying to rebuild some of they now https://micro.mu
| ellisd wrote:
| Raves, particularly ones that are designed to be "transformative"
| like Lightning in a Bottle in California.
|
| Music festivals with camping are magical ways to build community
| and inspire yourself around other like minded and curious people.
| I never attended these events until a near death experience
| prioritized my love of dancing in my early 30. Now nearly 10
| years later I'm even more convinced this is the way.
| kortex wrote:
| How do you find out about these? I hear about some by word of
| mouth but I'd like to accelerate the process.
| ativzzz wrote:
| I've found one by going to smaller EDM/DJ sets on weekdays
| and talking to people - it's not a huge crowd so people tend
| to chill and chat. Never ended up going to the actual event -
| it was more of a local burner/art event, but it was
| definitely a word of mouth kind of thing
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| Have you been to Burning Man or various Burner regional events
| that take place all over the world?
| km3r wrote:
| Lightning in a Bottle was amazing this year. Something about
| camping in a harsh environment really brings you closer with
| your friends, and the whole community there is so welcoming and
| energizing. Music has been bringing communities together for
| 1000s of years, and festivals like that really show how true
| that is.
| winrid wrote:
| Stage Rally (motorsport).
|
| The community is amazing. I've had competitors help fix my car
| between stages, in pitch black, in the middle of the desert.
|
| Volunteering is an easy way to get involved and is really
| appreciated! You go to interesting, sometimes beautiful places,
| help run timing, radio, etc.
|
| You can also volunteer to help specific teams as crew. The driver
| will usually cover all your expenses to get to the rally and feed
| you. We're building our next car atm (a VW Scirocco).
|
| Check out NASA Rally Sport, American Rally Association, and CRC
| for those in Canada. There is never an off season, there are
| always events.
|
| Note - if you plan to drive - start with RallyCross - and buy an
| already built car (it's 1-2x cheaper).
| Minor49er wrote:
| There's a group on Discord I hang out with that puts together
| experimental/industrial music compilations for charity. The group
| is highly creative which is fun and engaging
|
| They actually just announced their next theme today and are
| looking for submissions that are based on serpents. Their
| "inspriation" page is like a floating museum gallery (so long as
| you're not using IE/Edge)
|
| https://moonmusiq.com/serpents-compilation-info/
| denimnerd42 wrote:
| my town of 10,000 in a larger school district of 40,000. Schools
| have parent run (not associated with ISD at all) associations by
| grade level. (pre school, elementary, middle, high) They put on
| social events at least monthly with smaller groups breaking out
| weekly. Pickle ball, tennis, mahjong, parties, clubs, etc.
| SergeAx wrote:
| Social dancing, Argentinian tango in my case. Pretty healthy
| hobby for an engineer, by the way.
| y-curious wrote:
| I started a chess club in my suburban city. It went from 1 person
| on Nextdoor (who turned out to have developed the original Carmen
| Sandiego game) and is now a group of 15 regulars. Of the
| regulars, I would call 4 of them good friends that have since
| introduced me to even more friends.
|
| Chess isn't even something we regularly talk about, anymore.
| renox wrote:
| Note that it's not really the activity, it's the people who
| matters: I was part of several scuba diving club when I was
| younger: each had his strong points, and the community aspect
| differed a lot from one club to another..
| uptownfunk wrote:
| Parents of kids friends at school
|
| Grad School
|
| Neighbors
|
| Religious community
| justusthane wrote:
| Square dancing and running. Both have been wonderful for
| developing connections and lasting friendships -- in fact, I met
| my wife square dancing, although that wasn't my intention.
|
| I wasn't athletic before I started running and I wasn't a dancer
| before I started square dancing, so I think an important aspect
| is stepping out of your comfort zone yo try something new.
| ragingroosevelt wrote:
| Crafting clubs. In particular, I found a spoon carving (green
| wood working) club that was astoundingly welcoming. Attendance is
| pretty even between men and women and across ages. Pretty diverse
| ethnically, too.
|
| My wife and I go every month and people started inviting us to
| post-event activities. We know most of the regulars by name and
| even people I don't know recognize us. It's super casual and
| everyone is just there to enjoy the outdoors while they work on
| their projects.
| mkrone42 wrote:
| I was an athlete in college and struggled to find community after
| joining the working world...
|
| ... so I built a platform to connect college and pro athletes in-
| person around sports and shared interests.
|
| Would love any feedback on the app as we roll it out this summer!
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adak/id6444288312
| alexei_rudak wrote:
| The community of dancers once I decided to learn Cuban Salsa. It
| was the best choice for me to feel happy.
| jot wrote:
| Not quite outside of work but separate from my clients and
| employers. I have found it at my Coworking space.
|
| Sadly, in my experience, few Coworking spaces provide the things
| good communities provide.
|
| I recommend trying all the Coworking spaces near you until you
| find the one that feels right.
|
| Like good coffee shops, it's usually the ones that aren't part of
| a chain that are best. High-end interior design, flashy marketing
| and all the amenities you can imagine aren't the things that
| matter.
| doctorh wrote:
| My local Catholic parish. Besides the obvious spiritual benefits,
| it's a great place to connect with other families. Also, me and
| my wife have young children at home that act as a pretty constant
| source of community.
| JeanV-pip wrote:
| Same here! Catholic youth group, Emaus group, and i also help
| the people of St. Vincent de Paul ministry. I don't have a lot
| lot of time so I'm not very consistent, but i sure go to at
| least one of them every week. Highly recommended.
| abnercoimbre wrote:
| Take matter into your own hands. "Be the change you want to see"
| basically. For example I organize software meetups at a nice
| coffeehouse. It started out with like four people a year ago, and
| now we average ~25-30 each month, and growing. Consistency is
| key.
|
| P.S. If you live in Seattle, and you're a software engineer,
| shoot me an email: abner at handmadecities dot com
| bombcar wrote:
| You can do this really simply, if you're willing to eat alone
| for awhile - just put a notice in appropriate places that
| you'll be at the restaurant/bar/whatever every Thursday at 7:00
| PM for "whatever topic you come up with". It'll eventually
| grow.
| _tom_ wrote:
| Meetup.com is worth the $100 for this.
| antisthenes wrote:
| Other dog owners/trainers. Neighbors. Anything close by really.
|
| I don't really have the time to venture far from the house for
| hobbies, so most of mine revolve around dogs/gardening and
| electronics tinkering that I do inside the house.
|
| And obviously hanging out with long time friends.
| andreynering wrote:
| The church is like a second family for me. I made so many great
| friends there!
|
| Of course it will not be for everyone, but if you are open to it
| you can try.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I expect sect/denomination has an influence here because my
| experiences in the past were strictly familial, no one made
| friends there though there are familiar faces. Once service is
| over, it was Sunday brunch with family.
|
| At any rate, potential friendship is a weak rationalization for
| joining a religion when there are many avenues to do this.
| swat535 wrote:
| Yes, I'm a practicing Catholic and attend Church often with my
| fiancee.
|
| Everyone is welcome to even attend Mass (they just don't
| receive communion) and participate in activities that we
| organize. We also have many support groups for elderly,
| grieving families, young adults and so on.
|
| Additionally, if you want to do volunteer work, contact the
| closest Catholic Church. You can join pretty much all of the
| events regardless of your background.
|
| We are not some "exclusive" membership, the doors are open.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Start a morning coffee group that meets weekly. Been
| regularly attending the last decade. A silver lining of the
| pandemic is now we meet around a morning fire when it's the
| proper season.
| kulahan wrote:
| Church is great for this specifically because it's a social
| group that spends all its time espousing the idea that all
| men are created equal, therefore ALL backgrounds are welcome.
| The most important piece of social mobility is knowing those
| outside of your economic circle.
|
| Example: You need a job, you know your great buddy Bob has a
| spot that you could hop into, he knows you pretty well and
| that you're not an idiot, so he hires you on the spot into a
| job you never would've had the qualification for otherwise.
| etskinner wrote:
| For those who aren't religious, there's also Sunday Assembly:
| https://www.sundayassembly.org/
|
| For those who are spiritual but not Christian, there's also the
| Unitarian Universalist Association: https://www.uua.org/
| UtopiaPunk wrote:
| Agree. Obviously if you're a staunch atheist or otherwise just
| can't stomach the idea of "God," then visiting a church not
| recommended. But if you grew up Christian and drifted away, or
| you can entertain the possibility of a higher power, then I
| recommend checking out a church as a place to find community.
|
| Denominations are different flavors of Christianity, and which
| denomination you visit is important. I'm personally a member of
| "The Episcopal Church," which I find to have a very small
| amount of dogma and is tolerant of a wide range of beliefs. The
| theological dogma can be summarized in the "Nicene Creed,"
| which is a pretty short list of what the church holds to be
| true (and even if you as individual differ, TEC is chill about
| that). After that, members of The Episcopal Church are more
| united in what they _do_ together rather than what they
| _believe_ togther - songs, taking communion, common readings,
| etc. The Episcopl Church is generally one of the more liberal
| /progressive churches around (we ordain women and LGBTQ
| individuals into the clergy and perform same-sex marriages, for
| example).
|
| Otherwise, it's a nice group of people that I see every week. A
| lot of churches have a "coffee hour" or a meal after the
| service, and it's a time to chit chat with others. They care
| about me and I care about them, and people check in on each
| other to see how everyone is doing. When we had a baby, people
| brought us food, and we always get cards in the mail for
| birthdays and such. It's nice.
|
| Since we're a _community_ of people, we can sometimes work
| together to accomplish things I wouldn 't be able to do on my
| own. We run a food pantry and we've supported families fleeing
| from bad situations (and not in abstract sense, but doing the
| legwork of finding an apartment in town and providing furniture
| and stuff). One family attends our services, and their kid is
| about my kid's age, so we've become friends over that.
|
| Again, I know religion can invoke strong feelings, so if the
| very idea is offputting, leave it alone, it's fine. But for me,
| it's been a community I've appreciated having.
| ashton314 wrote:
| +1 for this. No church is perfect, but my experience is that
| church is a place where I can go to gather with people from
| diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and needs and come together
| on some common points: we need more than ourselves to make it
| through life, we need to be kinder, and we should serve each
| other.
|
| I have seen my congregation rally around new parents, people
| with mental health conditions, and other such common struggles.
| Serving others is a great way to feel that you are part of a
| community. Church can be a great framework for that kind of
| thing.
| [deleted]
| raintrees wrote:
| University of Reason and No Agenda Social for online. The rest in
| the real world, playing music with others, putting on musical
| concerts of other musicians, garden club, permaculture club.
| Helping neighbors with their property projects, them helping me
| with mine.
| potta_coffee wrote:
| Brazilian Jiu Jitsu has been an awesome venue for finding new
| friends. I highly recommend, plus you'll gain fitness and
| confidence.
| coolspot wrote:
| Hacker News. You all are my community!
| rullopat wrote:
| I started playing the electric guitar in a school, where they
| also do lessons for bands, so now I play live some covers with
| them. I'm the by far the oldest of the group and I came to
| connect with a lot of people that also love to play of very
| different ages and backgrounds.
| robbyking wrote:
| I'm going to add another vote for volunteering. A lot of people
| only think of food kitchens and political campaigns when it comes
| to volunteering, but as a cyclist I've made a lot (if not a
| majority) of my friends while volunteering at events like trail
| building days, or by helping to set up or tear down for races or
| other cycling events.
| nullpage wrote:
| My local makerspace[1] for sure.
|
| 1. https://protospace.ca/
| xahrepap wrote:
| 1 - I host a game night once a week. We play Magic the Gathering.
| Though the group is quite small now (4-6 people) it was quite
| large pre-pandemic (~20 people). I just asked around at work and
| the neighborhood if anyone was interested and just sent out a
| text every week to those who said they were interested.
|
| 2 - Monthly board game night. Very similar to #1, but I mention
| it because it's much less formal. There's a small group of
| neighbors in my little neighborhood. Once a month or so one of us
| will text the group and say "Who's up to board games? I can do
| Wed or Thurs". Usually have 3-5 people actually show up so far.
| But it's been fun.
|
| 3 - "Knit Night". My wife recently joined a group of people who
| like to do more ... traditional style crafting. Mostly crocheting
| and knitting. Though there's a little bit of quilting. And
| sometimes people show up and draw. One time one person did a
| stained glass kit. But they just get together every other week,
| take turns hosting.
|
| 4 - Band. My wife joined a local for-adults band. A former band-
| instructor from a local highschool formed it. They do
| performances in the community 4 or 5 times a year. Apparently
| these kinds of bands are pretty common. Probably could ask a
| local conductor at a highschool, middle school, or community
| college if they know of one locally.
| donkey-hotei wrote:
| My yoga studio and sailing community. Nearly every day I find
| myself at my yoga studio after work to practice. It's how I met a
| lot of my initial friends where I currently live. Then, there's
| the hobby of sailing which has a rich community where I live.
| Intentionally I don't seek out tech-based communities, but ones
| centered around other aspects of life.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Historically, it's been climbing or other social events for me.
|
| But lately I've been working so much I barely have time for
| anyone or anything besides an occasional climb and spending time
| with my partner.
| donnfelker wrote:
| A fitness community. This could be either a BJJ (Brazilian Jiu
| Jitsu) place or even a CrossFit gym. I've done both and while I'm
| not here to promote CrossFit, I am here to say that a group
| fitness class is awesome for meeting other people and finding a
| community of people that do something similar as you, but have
| absolutely nothing to do with your work.
|
| I workout with Police officers, Lawyers, Doctors, Dentists, Stay
| at home moms, Accountants, Students, other tech folks, etc, you
| name it they're all there.
|
| There's something about "shared misery" that brings people
| together and builds a comrade. That turns into a community where
| you start to hang out with them out of the gym/etc.
|
| This happens at any group fitness place where the same people
| show up at the same time to do the same thing. It's natural,
| organic and freeing.
|
| I've moved across the country 3 times now and this is how I
| integrated into each area I moved into.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| I've had the same experience with the BJJ community. Very
| positive and welcoming, and an incredible sport for training
| the mind as well as the body.
|
| Some people get turned off by the behavior of certain fans of
| UFC but in my experience the groups of people who are starting
| fights in pubs and people who are actually showing up to
| intense physical training on a regular basis are mutually
| exclusive.
| nostromo wrote:
| Or a team.
|
| I joined a rugby team that is open to everyone but highlights
| lgbt inclusivity in sport. We practice twice a week, have
| games, and have other events. I've made so many good friends
| from the team it's hard to keep up with them all.
|
| Staying fit with them is an added bonus.
| bazzert wrote:
| Fully agree, the crossfit gym I joined several years ago has
| become an important part of my life.
| trbleclef wrote:
| Sounds like you are looking for your local community chorus!
| Often no experience required.
|
| The Choruses tab here[1] is a good place to start. This[2] may be
| a little outdated. Or just Google.
|
| [1] https://chorusamerica.org/member_directory
|
| [2] https://www.singers.com/lists/choral-groups/
|
| a PSA from HN's lurking choral director
| plemer wrote:
| This might be the closest for me. Grew up in choirs and play
| multiple instruments. Would really love a gospel choir, if one
| would have me. Will poke around. Thanks!
| geocrasher wrote:
| You asked, so I'll tell you: My local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's
| Witnesses. https://jw.org.
|
| I've never been happier in my life, and the sense of purpose,
| community, and security has never been higher. I won't espouse
| any religious teachings here, that's what the link above is for
| should you choose to visit it.
|
| The most amazing part is that it's genuine and trustworthy. It's
| all made of imperfect humans to be sure, but you'll be hard
| pressed to find more trustworthy people who show a sincere
| genuine interest and truly care.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| > who show a sincere genuine interest and truly care.
|
| ...until you decide it's not for you and you are summarily
| kicked out and effectively exiled.
|
| I am glad it works for you but JW acts like cult, and probably
| is a cult. I've seen first hand the damage it does to people
| who choose to no longer partake.
|
| From this source:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4zzruz/iama_exjehovah...
|
| 'Those who leave the faith are called "apostates" and are
| "disfellowshipped", a term for formal expulsion and shunning,
| where members are "prohibited from talking, and even from
| saying 'hello' to them".
| yaseer wrote:
| I'm an atheist that's generally anti religion, but I think it's
| unfair to dismiss OP's personal experience as an invalid answer
| to the question.
|
| You could say this community is implicitly a secular one, but
| OP's answer frames things within HN's guidelines.
|
| I guess in the spirit of HN's intellectual curiosity, we should
| at least acknowledge alternative life experiences here.
| bscphil wrote:
| Sincere question: when did you join JW, and what was your
| immediate reason for doing so?
|
| The reason I ask is that there are a lot of people recommending
| churches (of various kinds) in this thread, and I take it most
| of the non-religious among us would very much _not_ be
| comfortable regularly attending a religious organization 's
| meetings purely for community, while not believing any the
| things that organization believes. (With the exception of
| religious organizations that are explicitly accepting of people
| with any faith, such as Unitarian Universalists.)
|
| To me, it's sort of implicit in the question that what we are
| looking for is something you can show up to and get involved
| purely because you want somewhere to show up and get involved,
| without people side-eyeing you because of that or expecting
| something more than that (like a declaration of faith) in the
| months or years to come.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| At least for Protestant Christian churches, there can be
| ambiguity about the purpose / audience of a church meeting.
|
| Some meetings are intended as outreach to non-Christians.
| E.g., to present reasons for being Christian, or to let
| outsiders see what a typical worship service is actually
| like.
|
| Some meetings (or parts of meetings) only make sense for
| actual Christians: singing worship songs, testifying what
| they believe God is doing in the world, or taking communion.
|
| I think a lot of awkward discomfort stems from lack of
| clarity on these points, and confusion about which attendees
| are professing Christians.
| geocrasher wrote:
| I was raised around it but decided to become baptized at 19.
| I'm in my 40's now. Reason? Life, the world around me, and
| pretty much everything just made better sense. I feel secure
| and happy this way, and I like it. I'm plenty open minded,
| and I've studied other belief systems, but I made a conscious
| choice that I stick to because it makes the most sense to me.
|
| Some people think that because many of us have left other
| ways behind that we're fanatical or something- nope, we just
| found something that makes more sense to us than anything
| else, and genuinely believe we've found the things most
| others are still looking for- meaning to life, answers to why
| things are the way they are, and a secure future.
|
| We're welcoming of anybody who wants to visit and check us
| out. We expect that if somebody doesn't _want_ to share in
| our beliefs that they 'll probably move on, and that's fine.
| We aren't about membership, we're about showing people what
| the Bible says about things.
|
| To that end, we've re-evaluated the Bible without any pre-
| conceptions, which is why a lot of other religious that
| believe in things like the Trinity or the immortal soul look
| at us as heretical or crazy. But, when we objectively looked
| at the Bible (KJV originally) we didn't find those things, so
| we don't believe them. Pretty simple really.
| Zetice wrote:
| Eh, it's genuine _as long as_ you subscribe to their set of
| beliefs. This may not be a problem for you, but for folks who
| care about reality, it could be more difficult.
|
| The difference between this and say, a rec soccer team, is that
| it's an all-or-nothing endeavor. You can't "casually" become a
| Jehovah's Witness (or any other religion), you have to decide
| that your entire life is aligned to those principles.
|
| I'm not knocking it (here, anyway), but I would hesitate to
| join a religion to make friends.
| comprev wrote:
| Religious cults prey on the weak. Their entire recruitment
| ethos is based around offering vulnerable people help in
| times of need.
|
| Nobody joins for purely the social aspect. "All or nothing"
| is fairly accurate.
| geocrasher wrote:
| but I would hesitate to join a religion to make friends.
|
| Agreed. That isn't what I suggested. I answered the question
| asked. Nowhere did I say somebody should attain to becoming a
| JW to have more friends. That's the exact wrong reason in
| fact.
| Zetice wrote:
| So is "community" or anything else OP asked about, if you
| aren't capable or comfortable with disregarding reality.
| jrumbut wrote:
| > it's an all-or-nothing endeavor
|
| I don't know anything about Jehovah's Witnesses but certainly
| there are a lot of religions that are comfortable with people
| coming by out of curiosity and/or participating sporadically.
|
| I think that's how most people do it.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| They're referring to what happens if you join the faith,
| and then leave it: Defellowshipping, aka shunning.
| digitalsushi wrote:
| I googled the word and the first google hit tells me that
| if I am following those rules, it's not cool for me to
| say hello to someone in that state of being.
| TylerE wrote:
| Yeah, JW are, to put it mildly, nuts. They also outlaw
| _blood transfusions_. They literally expect you to just
| die if you experience any sort of trauma.
| geocrasher wrote:
| That's right, we choose not to accept blood transfusions.
| But, "literally expect you to just die if you experience
| any sort of trauma." is outright wrong. We _strongly_
| value life! We spend a lot of time and resources to
| understand transfusion alternatives, of which there are
| many, and we each individually make the decisions as to
| what types of treatment we will accept.
|
| If you want to find out what we actually believe:
| https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/jehovahs-
| witnes...
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Let me ask you a direct question, and I hope you'll
| respond directly.
|
| Lets say all of those "transfusion alternatives"
| demonstrably fail, and someone has two choices left:
| Transfuse or Die; you might phrase that as "Transfuse or
| Pray", but either way...
|
| ...What then? When all other options are exhausted, the
| prayers aren't working, and your last chance to live
| involves transfusions, are they permissible?
| slothtrop wrote:
| > But, "literally expect you to just die if you
| experience any sort of trauma." is outright wrong.
|
| How's this: "literally expect you to die if you're in
| need of a blood transfusion to survive". Seems pretty
| much in line what what you espouse.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| JW are all or nothing, but lots of other religious
| communities accept various degrees of unbelief: various
| Jewish denominations, Quakers, Unitarians, Episcopalians,
| Western-style Buddhists, etc. Catholicism is officially all
| or nothing but if you're born into it, there are a lot of
| liberal parishes where you're not expected to actually
| believe it. There was an Episcopalian meme circulating in the
| 00s where it showed a picture of the controversial
| liberalizing American Archbishop with the text "Don't believe
| in that crap? Neither do we."[1] That's pretty standard among
| mainline denominations.
|
| [1]: http://mliccione.blogspot.com/2006/11/apropos-of-
| episcopal-p...
| f154hfds wrote:
| Religions are very different. Imagine Islam vs. Buddhism for
| example. The GP point is a valid one: fellowship alongside a
| shared set of core beliefs is invaluable. The problem is not
| all shared beliefs have equal merit.
|
| I could be a white supremacist and find great fellowship with
| other white supremacists but this would be destructive in the
| long run, in the short term to others due to my prejudice but
| in the longer term to myself because those beliefs are
| objectively abhorrent. But not all shared belief systems are
| abhorrent.
|
| Instead, groups of people for centuries have found
| camaraderie exploring what it means to follow a certain
| historical figure, Jesus Christ. Looking at his teachings you
| can see that this will lead to vastly different outcomes than
| following a Joseph Smith, a Muhammad, a Richard Dawkins, etc.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| There are quite a _lot_ of varying degrees of casual
| believers in religion. I grew up in a family of Christians
| /Catholics who never go to church, rarely say grace, have
| never personally read the Bible, but still believe in
| God/afterlife/etc and have personal beliefs that are molded
| from religious teachings.
|
| I know at least for the Christian based religious groups I'm
| aware of, you don't even need to share faith to be part of
| the community.
|
| Believe it or not, they don't get into fist fights when they
| meet someone of another faith either.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Even non-believers have had their beliefs shaped in part by
| experiences with religion. In the case of joining a
| religious community, adhering to the dogma is usually
| important, let alone preferred.
|
| I also have known "Catholic-lite" adherents, but they
| ultimately identify as Catholic. Anyway some of the minor
| sects don't take the distinctions between theirs and others
| lightly.
| Zetice wrote:
| For Jehovah's Witnesses specifically, this could not be
| further from the truth [0], and for Christian groups
| generally, you beg the question here by ceding one must
| believe in that religion's concept of a
| deity/afterlife/etc. Such a belief is extremely hard to
| come by if not raised in that religion, and even harder if
| you're attached to reality's cause-effect relationships.
| Not impossible! But hard.
|
| And you're right; warring religious groups don't use
| fists...
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_con
| grega...
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Citing a disciplinary rulebook is not citing reality.
| Zetice wrote:
| Yeah it is, when you're talking about being a "casual"
| Jehovah's Witness.
|
| That's not a thing. They're probably among the worst
| examples of religion as a hobby.
| roflyear wrote:
| And the bible is... what exactly? :)
| ss108 wrote:
| This is a stupidly glib comment. The poster meant that
| the reality of life as a Jehova's Witness cannot be
| gleaned from looking at some document of the religion,
| and I think you knew that, but decided to take a shot at
| the Bible anyways because you've been acculturated to
| think that dunking on religion is both correct and
| acceptable.
| gedy wrote:
| > Eh, it's genuine as long as you subscribe to their set of
| beliefs. This may not be a problem for you, but for folks who
| care about reality, it could be more difficult.
|
| Sounds like any friend/social group that has strong political
| beliefs too? Was enlightening to see this in 2016 when I
| shared I didn't vote for Hillary. Heaven forbid I voted
| libertarian, was like having a scarlet letter on my chest.
| Zetice wrote:
| Not related, as politics are a disagreement _about_ forms
| of reality. Religion necessitates you believe in something
| beyond reality.
|
| Also good for your friends, they were right.
| joenot443 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Jehovah's Witnesses aren't merely some odd religion, they
| espouse beliefs such as rejecting blood transfusions,
| including among their children. Which has resulted in
| deaths. [1] I'm not entirely sure if advertising for a cult
| that puts people's health at risk is more appropriate on HN
| than pointing that out in a post that may very well be
| recruitment.
|
| [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/boy-dies-
| after-re...
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| You don't have to subscribe to their set of beliefs. They are
| not telepaths, they don't know whether you actually believe
| or not.
|
| For that matter, it's debatable whether or not the believers
| actually believe things. They probably wonder themselves
| sometimes. They don't often make a big deal out of it, if
| they do find themselves no longer believing... and there is a
| conceptual framework built into the religion (that of "loss
| of faith").
|
| Like the ancient religions, being willing to perform the
| rituals non-cynically is really the only requirement. You and
| everyone else already perform dozens of non-religious rituals
| and think nothing of it. What's a few more?
|
| I mean, don't do it if you don't want to. But don't pretend
| the option's not open to you. Even if there's a clever
| believer there that somehow reads your mind, you're not
| unwelcome at most of these places even then.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| My mum some years back got involved in a church (as a non
| religious person).
|
| She somehow ended up giving talks at church events and got
| invited to speak out of town (she would talk about subjects
| such as helping refugees etc).
|
| Eventually though she felt like she was being excluded in
| subtle ways and being asked to give too much of her time.
|
| I also went to a couplebbible reading events some years back
| (free food lol) as my gf used to be religious and wanted me
| to go along.
|
| Everyone was nice, food was good, but I couldn't get over how
| everyone in the group would listen to a story (which would
| literally make zero sense) and swallow it down as if it was a
| bed time story.
|
| Religion is weird.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Once you learn that parables may exist and are never
| literal, but can still impart wisdom, it makes more sense.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > Religion is weird.
|
| I think it's fair to say that there are people who:
|
| {believe | disbelieve} x {true things | false things} x
| {for good reasons | for bad reasons}.
|
| Deciding what's true can be a challenge.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| > Deciding what's true can be a challenge.
|
| It's not too hard when you hear ridiculous stories and
| treat them as if they were to happen today.
|
| The one I remember from the church event was about a big
| guy that couldn't be subdued and then ended up breaking
| through chains.
|
| So many questions from a single statement. Everyone else
| literally sat there and didn't blink an eye.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > It's not too hard when you hear ridiculous stories and
| treat them as if they were to happen today.
|
| Maybe it hinges on which parts of the stories you
| imagining happening today.
|
| E.g., if Jesus rose from the dead next week, I'd find it
| pretty thought-provoking. If he were merely crucified but
| stayed dead, I'd cross Christianity of my list of
| plausible world views.
|
| I.e., a lot really depends on whether or not those
| miraculous events _actually_ happened.
| joahua wrote:
| As a believer - thanks for the insight! Normative
| acceptance of bizarre claims must feel odd. I guess there
| is a passing familiarity with some of these stories in
| some of these communities that means they are either
| unexceptional or at least, not the "main game" as
| supernatural beliefs go -- but that must have felt
| strange!
|
| Most faith communities I've been part of have had some
| form of space for questions and encouraged discussion
| about stories they have heard. I've found probably 1 in
| 10 people would start a discussion about this and maybe
| half would engage with it, suggesting community is a big
| part of the draw but also that for a significant
| minority, community is centred on some of these "big if
| they were to happen today" events.
|
| I do think wrestling with our reality to understand the
| nature of the world is a pretty powerful force for
| creating meaningful relationships! But this depth can
| also be uncomfortable or abstract at times.
| dayvid wrote:
| Meditation. I got into it by accident when I taught English
| overseas. Some of the best friends I've had came from it,
| especially on retreats.
|
| Also if you make the community, you grow a community more. This
| happened when I became a teacher. I don't do it as much nowadays,
| though. You could equally have a solid community by organizing
| events, creating groups or some type of thing online like-minded
| people can find you by as a beacon of sorts.
|
| So, if possible, finding groups that align with deeply held
| values you have is a good sign or activities you deeply enjoy.
| It's probably good if it's something outside of tech unless
| that's something you mainly 100% care about.
| FourthProtocol wrote:
| Always had a thing for radio control, so eventually in 2015 or so
| I had a look online and discovered crawlers (1:10 scale replicas
| of 4x4/AWD/rock crawlers). There are quite a number available to
| purchase in ready to run form, and self-build kits.
|
| Lost interest in the geeky side of mechanics and electronics -
| they're neccessary to buy, or make a body. Jeeps, Land Rovers and
| Toyotas seem to be favourites.
|
| The thing I love about it is two-fold - first is building unique
| bodies never done before, using styrene. Second are the events,
| where you meet other RC geeks, see everyone else's builds, take
| part in comptetions (individual and team events). In France
| there's an annual event that runs a pretty sweet Camel Trophy
| event. SuperScale in Germany is amazing for having the longest
| 1:10 scale bridge seen in the hoppy. USTE (Ultimate Scale Truck
| Expo) in Florida USA holds the largest scale RC event I've
| attended/know of.
|
| Axial Fest in the US is also a big deal in the calendar, but I've
| never been. They have a "float you rig" challenge which got me
| building rafts for my trucks. Herds of fun.
|
| Some of my trucks and build progression at
| https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Play/RcTrucks.aspx
|
| I also get a kick out of building houses/bridges/and so on for
| events - some of those are here -
| https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Play/RcBuildings.aspx
|
| My most ambitious build took 5 years to (almost) complete -
| https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Play/FordF5Coe.aspx
| patrickserrano wrote:
| If you're in a city, get a dog assuming you're ok with the
| responsibility that comes with having one.
|
| About 5 years ago my wife finally wore me down and we got an
| English Bulldog. The friends that we made at the dog park have
| become some of our closest friends, and it's great having friends
| that you don't work with because you don't end up talking about
| work.
|
| I'm not a very extraverted person by any means but whenever I'm
| out with the dog I end up talking to people I never would have.
| Especially when I take him to a dog friendly bar (shoutout to DBA
| in the East Village!)
| elijaht wrote:
| For me it revolves around three pieces (1) doing some hobby
| activity (2) with the goal of socializing, (3) consistently over
| a period of time.
|
| For (1)- climbing, board games, team sports are all some ways I
| specifically do this for, but in a large city almost anything you
| find interesting probably has a group.
|
| For (2)- I think it's worth explicitly going in with the mindset
| that you want to be social. For example, I go to the gym for some
| me time. I have zero gym friends (even though it is a good place
| to make friends, if you want to). So just showing up won't be
| enough IMO
|
| For (3)- community needs investment. Most of the best groups I am
| in did not provide a lot of value to me for months. So you have
| to stick it out
| jraph wrote:
| A university choir of around 80-100 members. Joined as a student
| and stayed. I now have many friends, many of them from the choir
| or friends of a member.
| driscoll42 wrote:
| I'm a member of my local Rotary, the one I'm part of does a lot
| of good work around the city. I'm also part of a non-profit, the
| Chicago Engineers' Foundation
| (https://www.chicagoengineersfoundation.org/) that I get a lot of
| value and connections out of. Also a city club to meet other
| professionals and chat.
|
| But my main was going back to school to get a MBA, met a ton of
| people that way.
|
| What you want is called a "third place", which has sadly died out
| in many ways recently. A great way to just meet people from
| different backgrounds with different interests.
| ljsocal wrote:
| I joined a local Rotary club twenty years ago (in my mid-40s)
| and it's become a pillar of my social health and personal
| productivity. Service clubs like Rotary (Lions, Kiwanis,etc)
| are facing an existential demographic crash right at a time
| when people have a renewed interest in IRL social/community
| engagement. Fingers crossed that resolves!
| leesalminen wrote:
| I tried applying to my local rotary club online in 2019.
| Basically just a web form expressing interest. I got an
| automated email saying someone would reach out in the next 30
| days. I was met with complete radio silence. Never heard
| anything back at all.
|
| I was a Rotary exchange student 20 years ago which completely
| changed the trajectory of my life (for the better), and was
| excited to help the next generation with becoming an exchange
| student. I was also involved with RYLA as a teen.
|
| For a group facing an existential crisis, they didn't seem
| too worried about it
| xrd wrote:
| That's interesting to hear. I was also a Rotary exchange
| student to Japan. It was an incredible experience. I've
| thought about whether Rotary would be a good option
| personally or professionally but haven't tried it yet.
| bombcar wrote:
| You'll find that groups like the Rotary or Knights of
| Columbus or the Shriners are almost technologically phobic
| - it's entirely possible that your automated email came
| from a web form and your interest was forwarded to an email
| box of a member who had died years ago.
|
| Phone or in person is often the only way to get things
| done, unless there happens to be a tech-savvy person
| involved.
| leesalminen wrote:
| I could see that for sure. At the time I couldn't find
| any easy contact info for my local club and thought it
| would be inappropriate to just show up to the monthly
| lunch meeting. Maybe I'll try that though!
| bombcar wrote:
| That's what I'd do, at worst they tell you it's private
| and secret, but take your info down. Most likely they'd
| initiate you on the spot.
| driscoll42 wrote:
| Rotarians are... older, and often not good with tech. I've
| been a de facto tech support of mine a few times. They
| really would see some good overall growth if they invested
| in that some more.
|
| I don't think Rotary globally is facing an existential
| crisis, but it is in the US. It is very popular abroad but
| has been dying out in the USA.
| block_dagger wrote:
| Music! Playing in groups is a wonderful lifelong social activity.
| geverett wrote:
| Community living! I've lived in various communes for 8 years now.
| I don't use the term coliving space as I feel a lot of places
| that go under that moniker are commercially driven and not
| particularly community based. The houses I've lived in are very
| rooted in where they're based, host a lot of events, and
| (crucially I think) are not for profit - they're designed to
| sustain themselves rather than maximize $ for the landlord. This
| post has a bunch of resources to see if there are any community
| houses near you: https://supernuclear.substack.com/p/directory-
| of-coliving-di...
| xwdv wrote:
| Warhammer 40k.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Volunteer at my local DIY bicycle coop.
|
| Nobody gets paid so it aligns with me in ways that most non-
| profits won't.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| I've found it in Freemasonry. A sense of purpose and brotherhood,
| community support, etc. Being a part of the fraternity has
| introduced me to many other aspects of everything, but especially
| non-technical people. Knowing and being around men that also
| strive to be a better person, resonated with me. I don't have
| enough time to devote to their various projects and meetings, but
| what I can give, I do; and that is always returned. Friendship,
| fellowship and like minded goals. Freemasonry is my non tech
| outside the house outlet. Good experiences.
| erulabs wrote:
| There is a beautiful Freemason temple about 2 blocks from my
| house, one of my favorite buildings in the area. How does one
| get an invite to an event?
| BjoernKW wrote:
| Just google the lodge meeting there, go to their website and
| send them an email.
|
| Contrary to common perception, Freemasonry isn't a secret -
| or secretive - society. Usually, they'll be happy to oblige.
| anorphirith wrote:
| religion aviation previously MTG
| osdoorp wrote:
| Volunteering. And before you brush it out skeptically, like "oh
| yeah right, those people", it really doesn't have to be anything
| you don't care about.
|
| I volunteer at a boat house on the city lake nearby, just putting
| kids on pedal boats and kayaks. I don't even call it
| volunteering, I just love kayaks and water.
|
| It's amazing how your perspective of time and people and service
| shifts, when you spend some time being "in service" to other
| people, instead of anxiously counting hours that you're being
| paid for -- or could've been paid for -- and maximizing
| "receiving".
|
| I've confirmed for myself time and time again the advice I've
| read: if you have a busy life and want to increase a feeling that
| you have more time? -- try spending your time for free, for
| example, volunteering.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I intend to try some form of this once I have more leisure
| time. I'm a parent and I don't see it happening in the
| foreseeable future unless it involves my kids.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's almost impossibly easy to find volunteer activities if
| you have kids, everything from daycare to school to field
| trips to soccer, they're almost always quite open to
| volunteer help.
| kiliancs wrote:
| See if you can look for (or create) opportunities for your
| kids to practice doing service, and support them. It's an
| important part of life, like exercise or intellectual growth.
| redleggedfrog wrote:
| I wish this wasn't brushed off, but when I suggest it,
| frequently, as a scientifically proven method of improving
| happiness, well, it gets brushed off. I guess it's really
| difficult to relate just how much it can improve your life.
| Some of the highlights of my _entire_ life have been coaching
| 3rd /4th grade girls basketball at a YMCA. Yeah, it's a lot of
| work at the time, but the memories are priceless, and the
| benefit to the kids is definite - they tell me, years (and
| sometimes years and years - with a baby in their arms) later.
| agumonkey wrote:
| volunteering was one of the rare time where things could:
|
| - happen fast - suffer near no management bullshit - have
| social usefulness
|
| boggles my mind how it's not the norm
| amyamyamy2 wrote:
| I can definitely agree. I used to be very skeptical about how
| fun or healing volunteering could be. I started volunteering at
| an animal shelter and beyond being incredibly relaxing - I love
| animals - it's nice to switch from trying to optimize my
| career, code, education to just using my hands to help take
| care of something and meet new people.
|
| My anxiety has gone down a lot since I started doing this and I
| was able to meet some new people. Strongly recommend trying to
| volunteer with something you care about
| carlosjobim wrote:
| I think volunteering gets brushed off because in many places it
| is just a pure scam. The organizations collect money and then
| charge volunteers exorbitant sums for the privilege of working
| for free.
|
| I looked at volunteering about 15 years ago and from what I saw
| then, I have never entertained the thought again.
| mptest wrote:
| >In many places it is just a pure scam
|
| Seems a pretty overly strong statement, no? Is there any
| research in to percentage of non profit efforts that
| are/aren't legitimate? Can you elaborate on "what I saw then"
| that made you think it was indicative of the entire idea of
| volunteer work?
|
| I have had the opposite experience. All the best people in
| the world I've met have been volunteering for one thing or
| another. As a young tech guy I've provided general tech
| support to as many institutions around me as need it and I've
| never once felt anyone was anything but earnest. Feels unfair
| to write so much off. I hope you find an organization you
| would feel comfortable volunteering for again. It really does
| provide immense benefit to the mind/heart
| gardnr wrote:
| I got in with a new "startup" community bicycle hub. They
| were just getting off the ground so it was pretty chaotic at
| first. Now it's humming along and, from a selfish
| perspective, my mental health is much better spending a
| couple hours a week volunteering with them.
| ericyd wrote:
| This is a bizarre account, and completely dissimilar to
| anything I've ever heard of or experienced. Any specific
| organizations you can recall that engaged in this practice?
| ankaAr wrote:
| Sysarmy
|
| Cafelug
|
| Megajuegos
|
| Even when I'm not an active member on some ones, I will carry
| them with me for ever.
|
| Aside of that, any hiking group I found.
| tayo42 wrote:
| jiujitsu though competition gets a little toxic and filled with
| egos, friday night magic and mtg in general was fun for a bit
| until i realized how much of a cash sink it is. skateboarding,
| snowboarding and to some extent surfing, thats more of a loner
| thing. bowls at the skatepark are usually fun, social and laid
| back.
| antoinealb wrote:
| I second the magic the gathering suggestion, in particular if
| you go to tournaments. I have met a lot of cool people by
| preparing a tournament, discussing metagame choices, then
| spending three days living a shared experience (the tournament
| itself).
| kozikow wrote:
| BJJ (Brazilian jiu-jitsu) seems to be getting really popular in
| tech. Among others Mark Zuckerberg participated in a BJJ
| tournament very recently. BJJ seems to have the highest
| concentration of tech workers among any sports I did. Beyond
| the initial impression, it's very intellectual sport - "chess
| with your body".
| tayo42 wrote:
| Yeah it seems that way. Though gyms them selves are pretty
| diverse still. Even when I was training in sf I was one of
| the few tech/software people
| anonzzzies wrote:
| Local coffee places and bars; like minded people rock up all the
| time. Met lovely people just today; gonna meet them in an a few
| weeks for a hike. Never worked for me for focused envs, for
| instance the gym: too much whining about sports/health and not
| stuff I actually like.
| turkeygizzard wrote:
| Embarrassing / dumb q, but how do you actually get to talking
| with them in a meaningful way? I can imagine with repeats, it's
| easier to build up rapport, but I don't think I've ever hit it
| off so strongly with someone at a coffee shop that we exchange
| info after one interaction (mine here aren't super social fwiw)
| sublinear wrote:
| You didn't ask me and I'm definitely not suggesting you
| exclusively go out to bars but if you're in a nicer
| neighborhood, especially with patrons that skew older, you
| can basically flat out ask them for advice like you did here
| and you'll usually get a dump truck of it and their personal
| stories in exchange for your name and buying a few beers. You
| might even get invited to a backyard cookout that same
| weekend.
|
| Alcohol is a double-edged sword because it breaks down
| barriers. It's your call what you do with the information and
| experiences it provides. It isn't too bad if you're careful.
|
| You can take all that as a way to level up and be more
| sociable in sober settings like coffee shops. It translates
| to everywhere. People aren't different when they're sober
| apart from being slightly more defensive due to stress.
| That's actually a pretty good conversation starter if done in
| a non-confrontational way. The main skill is just learning to
| be genuinely interested in other people. It's easy to mimic
| this and return the favor when you've seen enough of this
| kind of attention given to you.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Tennis for me(and ultimate frisbee, although not so much in the
| past few years)! Tennis is one of the few things I have found
| where I am completely comfortable going up to a stranger(maybe
| they are on a court, or have a racquet in their backpack) and
| asking them if they would like to play sometime. There are also
| teams one can join(competitive or less so), tournaments, for fun
| social groups. Its been very wonderful.
| samtho wrote:
| I've been doing ground school and getting into flying lessons,
| but what has been really interesting and surprising was the
| strong community that lurks just behind the wall you have to
| climb to enter. It can be a cost prohibitive hobby but a lot of
| people make it into a career. You get a lot of different types of
| people and they are welcoming. I've done work for people in
| exchange for for some wet hours on their plane
| bombcar wrote:
| I would recommend this - you don't even have to get your
| license, just start hanging around on weekends at the local
| airstrip and you'll find the groups.
| almog wrote:
| Personally, other than school, (mandatory) military services (I
| really do not recommend that) and work (well, cannot recommend
| that either when I come to think of it), it's thruhiking (hiking
| a trail end to end continuously, usually over weeks or months)
| where I've really felt like being part of a community (or a tribe
| really).
| vitabenes wrote:
| Swing dancing has been awesome for me: movement, complexity in
| the music (jazz), cool people (half of which are women),...
| RajT88 wrote:
| A friend of mine is an extrovert with a touch of Agoraphobia.
| (The agoraphobia came on in middle age)
|
| Most of his social life is online games these days like Destiny
| 2, Dead Island 1/2, etc. He's happy enough. I did the online
| circle of friends thing back in the Destiny 1 days and it was fun
| enough. I'm less extroverted, so don't need as much social time.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Extrovert _and_ agoraphobic? That must be painful for your
| friend. Poor guy.
| beebmam wrote:
| World of Warcraft. I met my current lovers in that game. There
| are a tremendous number of beautiful, sensitive, artistic, and
| brilliant humans I've met in that game.
| LouisSayers wrote:
| Funnily enough I've met a couple people in the past through
| housemate searches (and made friends with an actual housemate).
|
| The common element was that they were all new to town.
|
| One girl declined my spare room but said she'd like to see me
| again, and one time I told a guy he had some cool pics in his
| profile, and we ended grabbing a drink and formed a bit of a
| friend group around playing board games.
|
| So... maybe go house hunting?!
| ok_dad wrote:
| I participate in a weekly simracing tournament with several
| others. We're all adults with responsibilities so we're generally
| not all there every week, but we have a few leagues that we run
| in different games. I am not particularly close to those guys but
| it's a good place for my social needs to be met without having to
| always dedicate time that I might not have. We also have few
| requirements, just don't be a jerk, so even people using a
| controller or people who can't drive often attend. One guy is
| really slow and gets lapped quite often, but I've never heard any
| suggesting he's not welcome.
|
| A real world meetup would be harder for me with a job and a kid
| with some special needs, so a virtual thing is great for me.
| mydriasis wrote:
| I joined the Freemasons. It's been awesome, I've met a great
| group of guys and we talk smack and eat soup. Good stuff.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| I've been curious about the Freemasons. What type of people do
| you tend to meet through it?
| antoinealb wrote:
| How does it work ? I always kind of assumed you had to be
| invited to join, that it was not something you can just go to
| and register ?
| kortex wrote:
| As far as I understand as a non-member, but as someone who
| has talked to one, they are really hurting for new members.
| I'm pretty sure if you just find a local lodge and email them
| they'd be happy to give an invite.
| trailrunner46 wrote:
| Might seem like and odd one to some but I became a volunteer
| firefighter and it has been very rewarding for many reasons but
| the connection with the community is a big one (most members grew
| up in the town and a central part of it).
| bombcar wrote:
| You can also get a cool license plate (in most states)!
| ineedausername wrote:
| Magic the Gathering local game stores joining tournaments and
| events ocassionaly.
| joe_hills wrote:
| Local weekly pinball tournaments are an amazing way to meet folks
| and hang out in a low-pressure social environment.
|
| Since the rounds of the tournament are randomized groups of four,
| every round is a chance to introduce yourself to three other
| players and learn each others' names. If you come back regularly,
| you'll start to recognize and be recognized by the other
| regulars. Everyone gets to know each other better at a natural
| and unforced pace.
|
| I've been playing every Wednesday night for about a year, and I
| like it so much that I'm shifting my work schedule so I can join
| the same local regulars for a Thursday night tournament at a
| different arcade too.
|
| I really hope you have the chance to give it a try!
|
| You can find tournaments in your area at:
| https://www.ifpapinball.com/calendar/#
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Bumble BFF is where I found my way into a local queer women's
| bookclub that also a is a space to form ad hoc meetups, do hikes,
| and generally make friends.
|
| Discord is another, oddly enough. The story is a bit messy, but
| there was an "offical" server attacked to a subreddit for my
| location (think r/<MYCITY>). That was, frankly, a terrible
| server, but I eventually found myself migrating onto a splinter
| server with a few other folks who felt the same way and together
| we've cultivated our own community. Again, the space serves as a
| clearinghouse for ad hoc meetups, group coffees, GWD[1] teams,
| groups who go to the musical theater together, etc.
|
| These online spaces are good examples of places that have
| cultivated norms around high psychological safety. In other
| words, behaviors that lower psychological safety are seen as
| destructive to the space. The high psychological safety there
| means that I can probably meet up with any random person in these
| spaces and be able to trade some degree of vulnerability with
| them and actually form meaningful connection.
|
| 1. https://www.geekswhodrink.com/
| carabiner wrote:
| I tried bumble bff as a guy, and it was just gay men trying to
| sexually assault me.
| BubbleRings wrote:
| I met a guy in the parking lot of Sugarloaf Mountain here in the
| Maryland suburbs of Washington DC, when we were both about to
| walk to the top of the mountain. (About a 40 minute climb.) So we
| walked up together. He smiled and said hi to everybody we walked
| past, it was kind of impressive how good he was at it. It
| influenced me, and now I try to smile and wave at people when I
| pass them while I am out running.
| orliesaurus wrote:
| I run a Discord with my friend (@moconinja) for people in tech
| who want to play videogames at night and chill. We don't like
| drinking at bars so we built it. So far we have about 10 people,
| mostly are from Austin, TX but there're also others from all over
| the US.
|
| If you're interested, apply here - I will personally review your
| application and reach out :)
|
| [1]
| yata69420 wrote:
| Open source. I recently started getting back into submitting
| patches and hanging out on irc/matrix/discord.
|
| I think a lot of the advice like "join the church" or "do an
| activity" are lost on chronically online people like myself.
|
| For us, it should be "find an online community that makes you
| challenge yourself to improve", but it's hard to articulate that.
| andreynering wrote:
| I contribute to open source myself, and I agree that it is a
| good way to socialize and belong to a community.
|
| I just don't think someone should live 100% online. Having real
| life and strong relationships is pretty valuable, also for your
| mental health.
| malux85 wrote:
| Universities : Engage with professors and ask if they want any
| free coding done, you'll make friends
|
| Python user groups: I've been to two of them and speak every few
| weeks (for free) and have made a group of friends there.
|
| Shared interets: I am interested in computational chemistry, so I
| got on a bunch of science discord channels and started chatting
| and helping others (again for free), now I have friends in every
| country, I just got back from the US and I met several over there
| (they paid for my flights etc)
|
| Find some shared interests and engage with people
| SaintGhurka wrote:
| I joined the Texas State Guard and found a lasting connection
| with my group. When I'm there I feel like I'm with family.
|
| About half the states have a state guard. The organizational
| structure is military-ish, but we don't have weapons. We wear
| essentially the same uniform as the national guard, and sometimes
| work with them, but it's not related to the national guard except
| that we both report to the governor. The difference is the state
| guard ONLY reports to the governor and doesn't have any federal
| connection.
|
| Since I joined I've helped run a shelter after hurricane Harvey
| and run water distribution centers after the freeze 2 years ago.
| But most of the time I just do the same thing I do at my regular
| job.
|
| When I joined they needed programmers. They need everybody, tbh.
| It's not hard to qualify.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Running groups. Every city seems to have a few for different pace
| groups.
| gcanyon wrote:
| I don't -- all of my "communities" are through work. Not the
| answer you're looking for, but I've been working in tech long
| enough at this point that I'm pretty sure it's not going to
| change (for me).
| Hamuko wrote:
| I don't really even have community through work. There was more
| of a community when everyone was working at an office, but not
| to a massive extent.
|
| (Still wouldn't go back to the office.)
| lynx23 wrote:
| Reading the comments, I notice a lot of posters seek out tech
| communities. While I get why a nerd would want to do that, I have
| a different tendency. Most of my outside-of-work activities are
| actually not tech related. Sure, I have a bunch of private
| projects to work on, but I usually do that in single player mode.
| I picked up a number of "also working in tech" friends over time,
| and going out with them is still fun and interesting. I also
| enjoyed the social time at various conferences, meeting
| likeminded people. But I don't want to spend my after-work-time
| and weekends with tech folks by default. That is, simply put, too
| much of one thing. Stepping out of tech is what keeps the dayjob
| interesting.
| robbyking wrote:
| > _I notice a lot of posters seek out tech communities. While I
| get why a nerd would want to do that, I have a different
| tendency._
|
| Absolutely! I genuinely enjoy writing code at work, but I
| literally never do it in my spare time. I already spend a
| greater number of waking hours in front of my computer than I
| do with my friends and family (or playing music, or mountain
| biking, or...).
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| leaving SF was a godsend. I was tired of everyone being in tech
| and it's nice interacting with people that are actually diverse
| and don't all work in the same industry and have the same
| mindsets.
| lackbeard wrote:
| The time-honored (or "lindy") solutions here are joining a gym
| and going to church.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Pick-up basketball. Just go once or twice a week
| sebastianconcpt wrote:
| After having many Out of Body Experiences (without hacks or
| chemical hacks), I've met people that also did and wanted to know
| more about consciousness. I met lots of interesting people and
| long lasting friendships following that lead and finding these
| common experiences.
| xavriley wrote:
| It's not been mentioned yet, but if you play music then going to
| jam sessions is a great way to meet people. You're all on a
| journey together toward improving as musicians which helps things
| to gel. As a jazz musician I can find a jam session in pretty
| much any city I go to. If you don't play you can always go just
| to listen, watch and be inspired
| draw_down wrote:
| Church. Volunteering (best results serving meals, less success
| with food pantries). Poker games.
| davidbanham wrote:
| Volunteer fire brigade. Great way to connect with local
| community. Also a pathway into experiences and skills you'll
| never get anywhere else.
|
| Kids school. Everyone is local, engage with the other
| parents/etc.
|
| Local dog park. Get into a routine of regularly heading up at a
| similar time and you'll get familiar with the others that do the
| same.
| daverol wrote:
| Live in a village, get a partner, have children, participate in
| children's schooling.
| baggsie wrote:
| Mountain Biking - you get a really varied cross section of
| society bonding over a shared love of getting muddy and acting
| like 12 year olds in the woods. My club's age range is from 20 -
| 76, and contains aCardiac surgeon, plumber, retired clown,
| journalist, a couple of coppers, a rabbit farmer and of course
| the requisite number of IT workers the sport attracts.
| torehan wrote:
| My dog, the dog park, and subsequently my neighborhood. If you go
| to the dog park twice a day you'll meet people and start chatting
| with them. Everyone needs to walk their dog so you end up seeing
| the same crew regularly. Its a great way to meet the people who
| live around you.
|
| I think the pandemic definitely helped people realize that their
| job can't be their only social outlet.
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