Making friends when you’re over 30

[boki]

They're all really nice people and we get on well, and a couple of them in particular I feel are close to being on our wavelength (i.e. weird/offbeat sense of humour, liberal-minded, easy going) but I've no idea how to progress it further to hanging out with them elsewhere, or more importantly if I even really want to.

Point to the pampus grass outside your front door and wink.

[TrenterPercenter]

I went to a bar on my own tonight (on a whim, as my pal bailed on our original plan) and now I'm apparently going to a gig next year with the people I got talking to, and potentially going to see a play one of them's in. Is this it, is this how you make new friends? Or is this actually a bit sad and pitiful, just talking to other lonely random cunts by myself? Surely this is what people used to do, this is how everyone's nans and grandads made friends, surely

No this is how it works; well done you have now have acquaintances; you will now move to the next stage which is finding out how compatible you are and what kind of friendship is going to develop.  It's not just about interests here but how flexible you are around them and how much time you have to share on them; eventually you might get to the stage of being friends were you talk honestly about things you usually don't share with other people because you trust them and feel that you know them in a non-superficial way.

That is basically it.  Keep going.

[Ferris]

I think part of it has to be fear. We've got a good thing going here already, what if we hang out somewhere else and then don't feel compelled to do it again afterwards, but we still see each other at the weekly thing? It's not weird per se, but it would have an underlying sense of awkwardness and failure to me at least.

I definitely relate to this.

Not to sound like a weirdo, but I think about this stuff ahead of time so I can casually suggest something (that I've thought about in detail) if I feel it's a good idea in the moment, so I don't think "ooh I'd like to hang out more" then get stuck on what to do or how to pitch it.

If there's a bar round the corner, I'll look it up and suggest it after working with people, or when picking kids up at nursery, to another parent: "well the kids are having fun playing together, there's a park just round the corner so we can let them have another 20 minutes outside if you guys have the time?" etc.

Just having an option in my back pocket and ready to be deployed at any second, basically, though COVID has fucked a lot of this stuff.


Separately @The Mollusk this thread has sort of made me take some big leaps, so you got that going for you which is nice. I've touched base with a friend of a friend who clocked my John Darnielle reference, and another friend's partner who liked my Summit Ice tshirt ("deny nothing!"). We're supposed to all 3 go for drinks "soon" (I still like having a 2nd person there to dilute my weirdness). Maybe they just think I'm an oddball, but we're messaging back and forth fairly regularly so I don't think so? Who knows. It is positive anyway, so there you go - start a thread on CaB and good things can happen.

[The Mollusk]

Separately @The Mollusk this thread has sort of made me take some big leaps, so you got that going for you which is nice. I've touched base with a friend of a friend who clocked my John Darnielle reference, and another friend's partner who liked my Summit Ice tshirt ("deny nothing!"). We're supposed to all 3 go for drinks "soon" (I still like having a 2nd person there to dilute my weirdness). Maybe they just think I'm an oddball, but we're messaging back and forth fairly regularly so I don't think so? Who knows. It is positive anyway, so there you go - start a thread on CaB and good things can happen.

Not sure if that last line was deliberately referencing Nirvanna The Band but it has now made me think of MAGIC BUUURGER.

Glad your plans are coming together! The regular messaging is a decent sign that things are fine. Even if they do think you're an oddball it is part of what makes you likeable, which is definitely something I've learned through my own friendships, testing the waters with gradual increases in the weirdness and finding that mostly people think it's an affable trait and not something to feel awkward about!

[madhair60]

I am basically in acceptance of the fact that I will never make another friend nor be in a relationship again.

[bgmnts]

Nothing wrong with that.

[Ferris]

Not sure if that last line was deliberately referencing Nirvanna The Band but it has now made me think of MAGIC BUUURGER.

Glad your plans are coming together! The regular messaging is a decent sign that things are fine. Even if they do think you're an oddball it is part of what makes you likeable, which is definitely something I've learned through my own friendships, testing the waters with gradual increases in the weirdness and finding that mostly people think it's an affable trait and not something to feel awkward about!

Yup exactly.

You're right, I've been re-watching NtBtS because it's the only thing on my laptop so I have it on in the background when working late at night in the basement like a goblin.

("One miracle? Any burger could do that - let's see it do two miracles!")

[TrenterPercenter]

I am basically in acceptance of the fact that I will never make another friend nor be in a relationship again.

It is your acceptance of it that creates it though; you've got two solutions here

1) stop worrying about being in relationship/friendship again, remove it from your mind if you don't desire or want it, it's taking up space you could be worrying about something else

2) Do something about it, stop worrying about the imagined consequences of trying or focusing to much on past failures and find some people to have some fun with.

First step is being honest do you want to find a new relationship/friendship? If the answer is yes then option 1 doesn't exist; so move to option 2, whilst doing option 2 consider how helpful it is to tell yourself you will never find another relationship/friendship - imagine a parent telling a child they will never find love and think about how that might make that child struggle to be confident in finding love in the end.

It's not easy and fortune is always involved but you don't give up on things like this. 

You are a nice lad Madhair don't talk yourself out of that.

[flotemysost]

I'm curious - how do you do it? Do you just walk up and introduce yourself? Do you have to wait for a lull in their conversation to sidle in? I've had nuggets of chat with individual people before, admittedly often when I've had a drink and feel more confident, but they've always been by way of "I can't help overhearing you talk about [thing I'm knowledgeable in]", and even then I never feel the gumption to follow through with "I'm the Mollusk, by the way, nice to meet you."

It was kind of a serendipitous thing in this case. I was supposed to be meeting a friend after work but they cancelled, but I wasn't in the mood to head straight home and mooch around on my own - so I decided to stop by a bar which was on my walk home, ordered a pint and sat reading my book at the bar.

That's probably key - I often have a book or some sort of reading material with me, partly because literally the only way I can focus on reading these days is if there's some sort of buzz or liveliness around me, but also I guess if I'm honest it acts as a sort of "crutch" or "prop" that allows me to be out on my own, because I'm nowhere near charismatic enough to just sit drinking on my own and staring into space occasionally talking to strangers and not look like a fucking weirdo. (There's always scrolling on your phone of course, but I feel like this sends off more "closed" signals to anyone potentially interacting with you, whereas reading in a sociable place seems to make it more obvious you've made the choice to be out and around people, even if you're sitting quietly. Plus, I'm not made of data!).

Anyway, unbeknownst to me there was a free-entry jazz show happening at that bar later that evening, so it filled up pretty fast, and this guy came over and asked if he could take the seat next to me at the bar. I asked if he was there for the jazz thing, it turned out he went every week and his friends were joining him later, so we introduced ourselves and then we just ended up getting into a very animated conversation about all sorts of stuff like men's mental health and our family histories and systemic racism (probably spurred on in part by all the drinks we kept buying, tbf). And his friends were great too when they came along.

So yeah, in that case I guess the stranger was the one to get the ball rolling, but I just went with it enthusiastically.

At the gig I mentioned in my OP I went to the bar to get some water from the dispenser but had to ask someone to shift over so I could reach it. The dispenser was hilariously slow, basically a trickle, and the guy remarked on how awful it is. I said "We'll probably be best mates by the time I get a drink from this thing". We laughed and chatted a little bit more and that was it. Later on it turned out he was the guitarist in the band I'd turned up to see. I'd been chatting to someone from the band on Insta earlier on asking about set times as well, so I feel like next time I go see them play I will most likely go up and have a natter with them. But even still, my high levels of self-doubt/imposter syndrome are insistent on convincing me I'll never fit in, they're cooler than me, you'd best leave it.

That's a sweet story and a good example of taking initiative I think - I can definitely relate to the impostor syndrome you mention, which often makes me panic in new connections that I won't be interesting or cool enough to sustain any appeal they might have initially seen in my companionship. I think in my case the more unexpected the situation or the lower the stakes (i.e. someone I might not necessarily ever see again), the more relaxed I am.

[Johnny Foreigner]

Small watering-holes are also conducive to getting to know people, purely because they force you to sit close together and/or share a table (at least in non-pandemic circumstances). Avoid big Wetherspoons and look for tiny hipster establishments instead; they also tend to attract more interesting people.

[Twit 2]

"I can't help overhearing you talk about [thing I'm knowledgeable in]"

Do you mind if I interject?

[flotemysost]

Small watering-holes are also conducive to getting to know people, purely because they force you to sit close together and/or share a table (at least in non-pandemic circumstances). Avoid big Wetherspoons and look for tiny hipster establishments instead; they also tend to attract more interesting people.

Agree (and as you say, I'm very conscious this sort of interaction might well be off the cards, for a bit anyway, imminently. As it is I'm testing like fuck before and after hanging out in any sort of places like this at the moment) - but yeah, I think smaller or I guess independent or more community focused venues are probably good for this kind of thing.

I feel like a pretentious piece of shit saying this but I've had similar interactions from hanging out in like theatre bars and independent local pubs, as often they tend to be quieter (literally - in terms of noise/volume levels) and laid out in a way that allows for more intimate interactions. BUT at the the same time I think a lot of it is just down to luck of the draw in terms of who else happens to be in the same establishment at the same time and up for being curious and sociable. I once befriended a complete stranger in a Yates using the aforementioned "read a book and nurse a pint and be open to conversations with strangers" mode, it doesn't have to be like some fucking artisinal craft wank haven.

I realise I've been talking a lot about meeting strangers in pubs; I'm absolutely not espousing this as the best way of making new friends, I'm just a bit of a restless lonely loser who can't always just sit around at home in the evenings because I'm a fucking idiot and I crave interaction and I've got no one really. Definitely all for meeting through hobbies or classes or whatever, I've just signed up for the next round of evening classes that I was going to previously - even though I know a few of the people on it already, I'm quite pathetically excited for that weekly buzz of interacting with people I don't know inside out and just doing something completely different to my day to day routine.

Good shout re: the rambling club @Keebleman, one of my aunts mentioned this to me years ago and even hinted not-entirely-subtly at the shagging aspect that you mention. Maybe I should follow up on her recommendation.