I think picking up people at the bar is easier than making friends at the gym - what you want is to join a crossfit gym, or something that has a stronger community culture to it. Not the gym.
There's a pub in my city where the staff greet you when you walk in and actively encourage you to sit at a table that's already occupied. If you come in alone you'll probably end up sitting at a two person table where inevitably there will be a stranger right across from you, with a couple similar tables right next to it. Of course if you want to be alone you can go sit in a corner somewhere.
Needless to say everyone starts talking to each other after a drink or two. This bar is enormously popular. I've never seen it not be packed. It's an incredibly successful strategy for them. With all the complaints about the death of third spaces, I'm baffled that more places don't do this. I see no reason a cafe couldn't do it as well.
All this to say I think it's a great loss that younger people aren't going to bars as much. I wouldn't say they're the best way to form deep connections, but I have zero fear of ever lacking random social interactions, because I know I can just go to a reasonably busy pub in the evening, sit at the bar, and sooner or later either I'll start a conversation or someone else will. It's also a great way to get good at handling opinions that are different from yours - if you have a thin skin or live in a bubble, being subjected to drunk people from every walk of life
will rectify those issues quickly lol.
I'm of half Mediterranian heritage and there was an Italian restaurant that I started eating at out of spite at the French one next door where I had a horrible experience. A little commercial strip across the street from a cemetary. Great food, big hearts.
Nobody ever suggested sharing a table, but if you offered and there was a seat available they'd seat you / someone there. They got busier, and the line started going out the door; people were doing this in line, because if you said you had a "full table" they would seat you at a family table and you could often get ahead of at least part of the line.
The French place closed and the Italian place moved downtown. The end.
I didn't end up with any enduring friends, but I met some great people who I shared food with, learned some interesting things. Riding Amtrak in first class (on the Starlight) was similar.
Or join something that's inherently a group activity. For me, it's singing in a choir. Everybody goes there to do something together with other folk, which lowers the barrier.
Good for you, OP! Climbing gyms are especially good for making friends because you are working on problems with people. My gym has a weekly meet up for people looking for belay partners as well as classes where folks talk. Crossfit might also do the trick, as might a running club. Good luck!
If you want to build a relationship with someone, try asking them for a small favor rather than offering one first* (or, for example, making random small talk about the weather). Most people love to help and feel useful. If you're new to the gym or want to learn a new exercise, you can simply ask for help. It's something we'naturally do if we weren't so afraid of approaching strangers.
I've learned this by reading Influence by Robert Cialdini.The trick is find something to which they say yes. If they do it their brain kind of tells them: If I did him/her a favor it's because I like him/her.... and liking opens other doors
If you want to talk to men at the gym it's easy and no need for awkward scripts. Just ask for a spot. Most guys will feel honoured to be asked as you're showing trust in them. They'll spot you and then just talk about lifting. I met loads of guys this way.
Don't talk to girls you're attracted to, though. They can tell. If they want you to talk to them they'll give you signs. But that's a whole other thing.
The bullet point list in the intro was so relatable. It brought back some still painful memories. I often wish I could go back in time and do some of those things differently. I don't know what I was afraid of, but I missed out on so many connections.
> Don't talk to girls you're attracted to, though. They can tell. If they want you to talk to them they'll give you signs. But that's a whole other thing.
What if you never receive any "signs", as far as you can tell? Should you never talk to girls?
> Ignored people I knew from class instead of saying hi because I didn’t know for sure if they remembered me even though the class had only 10 people in it
This one really hits home for me. Many times in my life, I have been on the receiving end of "being ignored" by people I knew. It fucking hurts. The more it happens, the more I withdraw socially.
Around 15 years ago I took on the challenge to start a conversation with random people to break through this barrier and train this muscle. What I started with was to chit chat with those I had already established an interaction. For example at the Starbucks I would say something to barista. Those interactions were short but broke the ice.
Later I went for random people in the street and that was quite awkward. There was simply not much I could work with (what I thought at the time).
This turned out to become a low stake effort to improve my social anxiety. Helped me build humour around it and eventually become comfortable
Fast forward to today, I can literally talk about anything to anyone. The main pattern I follow is to break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully or give a compliment. No permission just something they don't expect. Almost works all the time. It helps with confidence and also makes you realise its all in your head.
I'm not saying this is you, but i've also ran into a lot of those people, almost always men, often in their late 30s or 40s, going around talking to everyone cracking jokes and thinking they're the live of the party, while everyone else is just silently annoyed by them.
On the other side, I've seen people that get anoyed with someone trying to have a good time and start subtly using their group influence to sour people against that poor sap.
It is like a crabs in bucket mentality mixed with in-group machiavellian politics.
There's a fine line between being/not being that person. Self deprecating humor is usually works best. Also, when "everyone else is silently annoyed" that means the person can also know that. So there's a feedback loop providing signal and if someone doesn't realise that then they become annoying.
> The main pattern I follow is to break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully or give a compliment
I'm having to learn this about online dating too. My online dates traditionally don't go anywhere because typically they've been about just exchanging information, which is frankly boring to both parties.
You have to (gently) riff and tease a bit or it's not going to go anywhere. If you're talking about your jobs, nothing is going to happen. Establishing that rapport is everything.
Very sweet story. Next, invite that guy and his girlfriend and maybe someone else over to your place, or out to do something. Reciprocation matters a lot.
If you want to make friends, water your friend seeds.
Everybody knows a bunch of people by name, and nothing else, from various contexts. You go to matriculation, there's a bunch of people introducing themselves, too many to get to know. You work a job, there's 50 people whose name you know. You go to a party, your friends introduce you to 10 new people, and you don't have time to talk to them all.
The ones you don't talk to much, they are your friend seeds.
You move to a new town, and you know nobody, other than that one guy you never spoke to after the first week of university. Contact that guy.
Imo talking to strangers at the gym is hard. I made friends there just by saying 'Hi', waving to them when we started to see each other working out often enough. Then once you're using the same equipment or get dressed in the locker room you have a conversation about whatever and there you go.
Anyway, the fastest way I made friends outside of school was at a language course, where you have to speak a lot about something. You can switch partners during the course, so you can talk to other people. Another thing is sports clubs, it works out the same as the gym.
So the answer is, I guess, just going to gatherings where people learn new things with an instructor.
This is the nerdiest way to go about this, I love it. Good job OP! If you're interested in old video games or trading card games, see if there are any card or used game shops near you. The people there tend to be cool
It's obvious in hindsight but to me its really interesting you can collect data points on the community just by chatting with them. Maybe you could guess, by appearance or behaviour or something, whether most people at the gym are university students, or gym bros, or something else.
But by chatting with them, the world seems a bit bigger. And even if you don't see them again often, or don't chat again, its just nice that you have some level of familiarity and learn new things you wouldn't know unless you chatted with them. And although sometimes you have that awkward uncomfortable short conversation, every once in a while, you make a new friend. That is life, I suppose.
Most of the people in my gym would not thank me for talking to them. They rarely talk to each other unless they know each other outside. It may be a cultural thing.
> activities suggested by r/Syracuse like volleyball ... require you to already have friends.
False! Find a gym with open hours and just show up! I used to do this all the time with my friends, but there were always a few people there on their own. There is always someone a couple players short for their team, so just ask around ("Hey, you need anyone else on your team?") and you'll find some people to play with. Keep coming back week after week and you'll make some friends eventually.
I assume this works equally well for most team sports that can be played casually such as basketball, soccer, and others.
Wonderful! There's a lot of advice online about how essentially evil it is to talk to strangers: They're busy, they have headphones in, they might think you're hitting on them (God forbid; nothing could be more evil than attraction). Ignore it. It often as not boils down to fear and neuroticism from terminally online introverts (and sometimes plain old misanthropists) raised in a hyper-individualist culture and glued to devices sometimes from infancy.
Fair enough if an introvert just wants to be left alone; we should obviously never force our company on anyone (nor do the mentally healthy among us have any desire to do so, because we have empathy). However, people like that will let us know that they don't want to talk when we approach them, either directly or via body language and the nature of their replies. For many others, they're starving for social interaction, and it might make their day for you to reach out. This is what makes outreach worth it, in the end, despite the risk.
> they might think you're hitting on them (God forbid; nothing could be more evil than attraction)
You can find legions of people, particularly women, who do not want to be hit on unless they already find the other person attractive. Being hit on by an unattractive person may even quality for them as something akin to danger, already along the spectrum towards stalking or assault. Has nothing to do with being terminally online and has been reported since long before there was ever an internet.
> For many others, they're starving for social interaction
HN is an international forum, and while people are reporting increased loneliness in many countries, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they want attention from strangers. Where I live, a total stranger talking to you in public is annoying; it is strongly associated with foreigners who haven’t learned yet how to behave acceptably within the local culture. What people might be starving for are serious, long-term social bonds, of the kind that used to be common through large extended families, the parish church, team sports, and school friends who stay put and don’t move away. A mere friendly stranger in public could lead to such real bonds only rarely, so rarely that it’s not even worth considering.
Computers are feedback loops that ultimately are trying to take up 100% of 100% of people's consciousness seconds, so it makes sense that the winning/dominant ideologies on the internet are just whichever ones cause you to not spend time on anything except the screen.
I have never met anyone on the street who wasn't mentally ill or tried to sell me something. Types like this ignore your brief answers, facial expressions and body language, and continue to yap on. Honestly, I cannot imagine a single situation where a random interaction with a stranger on the street would be a positive experience. No, I do not strive for you to "reach out", on the contrary, I avoid you like a rotting carcass of a pigeon.
each place has different social dynamics. from my experience, working out at a gym isn't the exactly an easiest way to make friends. I've also frequented gyms in the past but there were moments that I needed to focus alone, otherwise couldn't get the gain I needed. the activity itself can become a social constraint in some cases.
when I've joined a social dance community, I was almost forced to talk and stand close with strangers. It is an emotional rollercoaster; it's all happy when I've met nice people but I've felt helpless when I had to dance/interact with people that I don't like, for whatever that is.
I've also practiced some type of acrobatics/solo dance for years and it is somewhere in between.
I think some type of intimacy heatmap can be made with all these activities.
Instead of a gym another options are joining volunteer groups, a fraternity order (Oddfellow / Rebekahs), a local D&D meetup or local motorcycle club.
Sharing a common interest is the easiest way to make new friends.
229 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadNeedless to say everyone starts talking to each other after a drink or two. This bar is enormously popular. I've never seen it not be packed. It's an incredibly successful strategy for them. With all the complaints about the death of third spaces, I'm baffled that more places don't do this. I see no reason a cafe couldn't do it as well.
All this to say I think it's a great loss that younger people aren't going to bars as much. I wouldn't say they're the best way to form deep connections, but I have zero fear of ever lacking random social interactions, because I know I can just go to a reasonably busy pub in the evening, sit at the bar, and sooner or later either I'll start a conversation or someone else will. It's also a great way to get good at handling opinions that are different from yours - if you have a thin skin or live in a bubble, being subjected to drunk people from every walk of life will rectify those issues quickly lol.
Nobody ever suggested sharing a table, but if you offered and there was a seat available they'd seat you / someone there. They got busier, and the line started going out the door; people were doing this in line, because if you said you had a "full table" they would seat you at a family table and you could often get ahead of at least part of the line.
The French place closed and the Italian place moved downtown. The end.
I didn't end up with any enduring friends, but I met some great people who I shared food with, learned some interesting things. Riding Amtrak in first class (on the Starlight) was similar.
*just paraphrasing a famous quote
Don't talk to girls you're attracted to, though. They can tell. If they want you to talk to them they'll give you signs. But that's a whole other thing.
The bullet point list in the intro was so relatable. It brought back some still painful memories. I often wish I could go back in time and do some of those things differently. I don't know what I was afraid of, but I missed out on so many connections.
What if you never receive any "signs", as far as you can tell? Should you never talk to girls?
Later I went for random people in the street and that was quite awkward. There was simply not much I could work with (what I thought at the time).
This turned out to become a low stake effort to improve my social anxiety. Helped me build humour around it and eventually become comfortable
Fast forward to today, I can literally talk about anything to anyone. The main pattern I follow is to break the pattern and make a joke, be sarcastic respectfully or give a compliment. No permission just something they don't expect. Almost works all the time. It helps with confidence and also makes you realise its all in your head.
And it is fun indeed
It is like a crabs in bucket mentality mixed with in-group machiavellian politics.
I'm having to learn this about online dating too. My online dates traditionally don't go anywhere because typically they've been about just exchanging information, which is frankly boring to both parties.
You have to (gently) riff and tease a bit or it's not going to go anywhere. If you're talking about your jobs, nothing is going to happen. Establishing that rapport is everything.
Everybody knows a bunch of people by name, and nothing else, from various contexts. You go to matriculation, there's a bunch of people introducing themselves, too many to get to know. You work a job, there's 50 people whose name you know. You go to a party, your friends introduce you to 10 new people, and you don't have time to talk to them all.
The ones you don't talk to much, they are your friend seeds.
You move to a new town, and you know nobody, other than that one guy you never spoke to after the first week of university. Contact that guy.
Anyway, the fastest way I made friends outside of school was at a language course, where you have to speak a lot about something. You can switch partners during the course, so you can talk to other people. Another thing is sports clubs, it works out the same as the gym.
So the answer is, I guess, just going to gatherings where people learn new things with an instructor.
For anyone curious it is called snatch
But by chatting with them, the world seems a bit bigger. And even if you don't see them again often, or don't chat again, its just nice that you have some level of familiarity and learn new things you wouldn't know unless you chatted with them. And although sometimes you have that awkward uncomfortable short conversation, every once in a while, you make a new friend. That is life, I suppose.
False! Find a gym with open hours and just show up! I used to do this all the time with my friends, but there were always a few people there on their own. There is always someone a couple players short for their team, so just ask around ("Hey, you need anyone else on your team?") and you'll find some people to play with. Keep coming back week after week and you'll make some friends eventually.
I assume this works equally well for most team sports that can be played casually such as basketball, soccer, and others.
Was this a typo or … ?
Fair enough if an introvert just wants to be left alone; we should obviously never force our company on anyone (nor do the mentally healthy among us have any desire to do so, because we have empathy). However, people like that will let us know that they don't want to talk when we approach them, either directly or via body language and the nature of their replies. For many others, they're starving for social interaction, and it might make their day for you to reach out. This is what makes outreach worth it, in the end, despite the risk.
You can find legions of people, particularly women, who do not want to be hit on unless they already find the other person attractive. Being hit on by an unattractive person may even quality for them as something akin to danger, already along the spectrum towards stalking or assault. Has nothing to do with being terminally online and has been reported since long before there was ever an internet.
> For many others, they're starving for social interaction
HN is an international forum, and while people are reporting increased loneliness in many countries, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they want attention from strangers. Where I live, a total stranger talking to you in public is annoying; it is strongly associated with foreigners who haven’t learned yet how to behave acceptably within the local culture. What people might be starving for are serious, long-term social bonds, of the kind that used to be common through large extended families, the parish church, team sports, and school friends who stay put and don’t move away. A mere friendly stranger in public could lead to such real bonds only rarely, so rarely that it’s not even worth considering.
when I've joined a social dance community, I was almost forced to talk and stand close with strangers. It is an emotional rollercoaster; it's all happy when I've met nice people but I've felt helpless when I had to dance/interact with people that I don't like, for whatever that is.
I've also practiced some type of acrobatics/solo dance for years and it is somewhere in between.
I think some type of intimacy heatmap can be made with all these activities.
if you see them frequently - just acknowledgement at first goes a long way before saying something. i.e the head nod | smile