I just got out of a 10+ year relationship a couple months ago, rather suddenly and not of my own volition. I do not fault my former partner, she did what she felt she had to do to be happy. Unfortunately, turns out, I didn’t really have any friends of my own, I was just a hanger-on to her group. I have done a bad job of keeping in touch with anyone outside of this group, and I find myself very lonely nowadays.
Things have been tough for me for this and several other reasons the last couple years, and while I am incredibly thankful for my family taking me back in and supporting me while I get back on my feet, they can’t be the only people I interact with. That said, how does one actually accomplish this? I’m pushing 40, I live in a rural area (30 minute drive to anything that isn’t run and populated by out-and-out racists), and I’m broke as hell. I’m not particularly even interested in dating, just making some new friends and not being so lonely all the time. Where can you go and what can you do nowadays that doesn’t cost a bunch of money and people are willing to talk to strangers? Internet or IRL, I suppose, but IRL is better because God I need to get out of the house more.
If you’re willing to DM a D&D group, you can probably find people who want to play.
That’s not a bad idea, but how do you actually meet these people and offer to run a game?
The best option is to find an rpg/board game store near you and just post an ad on their cork board - the internet can also work but you’ll usually end up needing to vet players much more.
i dont
Aside from meeting people at work, Ive only manually made friends twice. Once I found a hobby store that was near enough where they ran dungeons and dragons groups that were low pressure, so I was able to jump in and get taught and it was a good time!
The other was that I used reddit’s “gamerpals” sub to find someone to play with. Went through maybe three clunkers and actually ended up playing with a dude that I still play with weekly and is my friend.
Do we have a gamerpals or LFG community here on Lemmy? This is a good plan and you’re not the only one suggesting D&D.
despite the fact that everyone seems to play (or want to play) it on here.
Usually the best way to find new people is to get into an activity or hobby. Use meetup, or Facebook events, or other local event coordinating services to find activities or events you’re interested, go and chat with people, and if you hit it off with people after a few times seeing them, try to make a connection individually outside the group, like meeting up for coffee or a beer, etc.
The hard thing you’ll find as you age though, is there’s a finite amount of social attention people have with their lives, and as people age and establish their groups of friends, sometimes its hard to break into their circles as they’ve already kinda maxed out their in life social network. Sometimes they either aren’t really looking to add more friends, and include more people in their life, or just don’t think to invite you to events etc. Breaking though that, or finding people open to adding more to their social networks, can be hard as you age.
There’s no meetup group for smoking weed and going back to sleep unfortunately. I already checked.
Co-ed sports league - even something non-athletic like kickball, esports, or board games.
