Great question! I use Meetup and Bumble BFF. I'm old though...
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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Chess, book clubs, group running.
Board Games!
You could try DND open play events at hobby shops.
Bank Robbery seem quite fun, I highly recommend it
Board games. Either just standard board games and chat while you play, or something like wavelength, that's a question, or herd mentality to actually get to know people through the game.
I'll second this. For some folks just hanging out with people can be exhausting if you're not naturally chatty. Personally, I run out of meaningful things to talk about in focused conversation pretty quickly and need a chance for my brain to "reload" or I'm stuck talking about the weather to keep a conversation going. This goes double with people I don't particularly know well.
If you're playing a game with folks, most of the time everyone's focus is on the game or talking about things related to the game which is easy enough to do since it is a shared experience. I often find I have a whole bandolier of semi-related ideas to discuss or funny quips that build up as we play ready to be deployed at any available opportunity. That feeling of plenty in terms of conversation makes socializing over board games so much easier for me.
Yes, I've met a bunch of interesting people through board games, and one of them is one of my closest friends now! Facebook and Meetup are the top ways to connect, though I try to also promote the lowly, nonprofit GameNight.host whenever I can.
Anyway, Hard to Get is another, solid cooperative discussion game: it's like Codenames, except everyone is on the same team that's trying to pare the grid down to just the 1 assassin word; the clue giver gives highly restricted, awkward/irrelevant clues about it versus all the rest.
Join a hobby group or club for activities you’re actually interested in. It could be anything: sports, board games, video games. That way you already have a common interest with the others, and you feel less pressure to make friends because you can still spend your time doing what you enjoy.
This is correct, but, imo, incomplete.
The fact is, some of these groups kind of suck. Maybe they're cliquish. Or maybe they are all dicks, or are judgemental about people who arent in the group. Or maybe they just aren't your vibe for whatever reason.
If you are trying to make friends, I think the advise shouldn't be "join a hobby or club for something you're interested in" but "try out every hobby or club for everything you might be interested in"!
100%. Also true for any craft/DIY/manual hobby activity, art (music, sketching, painting), and so on.
Larping works great for me.
Walking around in the early evening and stopping wherever people are gathering.
I was just popping out for salad greens, and ran across a group of young people having a picnic on the sidewalk. They had way too much food and were offering to share it with everyone who passed by. I wasn't hungry but I sat down and joined the picnic anyway. Great people! I stayed for over half an hour and I'm so glad I did.
And this isn't a one-off. This is how I met my wife, too, sixteen years ago. You gotta be open to spontaneous experiences.
Rock climbing, go to your local climbing gym (if you have one) and take an intro class and then go hang out once you understand the basics. It’s such a welcoming community and people are really friendly and helpful towards beginners. Gyms also have new climber nights depending on the gym and those are great chances to meet people.
Yeah, except that it's $20 per visit. Ridiculous.
The membership at my local is still $60/mo (and is about to increase) so it's not much better.
Lots of gyms have need-based discounts, or will hire you to work, like, 2 shifts per month in return for a free membership. If you already have friends at the gym, they can often give you a guest pass. And some gyms give out free days for meetup groups, or classes that happen at the gym.
Unfortunately, more and more we are in the age of the corporate climbing gym, where they jack up prices but brag about "diversity". The grungy old gyms where a lot of the real community building in climbing happened are slowly fading away.
Luckily I belong to the grungy old type of gym
I second this. Bouldering especially since the climbs are quicker.
I broke my tibia while bouldering, so be careful and warm up before you go.
Another one I have not read in this thread yet: seek out (or organize) activities in your neighbourhood.
Volunteering or similar work, like lending a hand at small local theater or sports events. Depending on the work they might involve some downtime when you can chat with others and get to know them.
Team sports
Playing pool.
War (crimes) you'll be bonded for live threw trauma
Join a choir?
Indeed, I lead a choir and a handbell choir at the church where I work; some handbell ringers became very close friends!
Fighting games. There's a reason the FGC still puts so much emphasis on offline play. Go to your locals, go to majors, don't just sit there playing ranked at home!
That depends on what your interests and hobbies are.
At some point though, you'll learn to like anything if that's where the friends are.
I'm not sure I agree with that.
You're on Lemmy, so I'm assuming you're of a geeky mentality. If so, a local hackspace/hackerspace/makerspace would be a good bet.
On paper, my local one is a communal collection of tools we can all use. In practice however, it's an excellent social group for fellow weirdos. We just also have some really fun toys to use, when we need them.
https://wiki.hackerspaces.org/List_of_Hacker_Spaces
It's not fully inclusive of all of them, but a good starting point.