F25. Not a big fan of coffee, gaming, sports. Absolutely hate loud music and alcohol. What I enjoy doing is: embroidery, gardening, watching movies (and I like to do it alone, taking screenshots, and rewatching scenes), collecting newspaper clipping and printed materials, reading. I saw an advice about how you could start to visit a particular place regularly, and organically obtain new acquaintances. But what if my interests don’t include going any place? What do I do, start going to the library and read there..? But, it’s not even allowed to talk there, lol
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I’m someone who’s in favor of making friends organically in places where you are regularly. Here’s the thing, though, in general recluses don’t make a lot of friends, so they’re either alone or they rely on family for those relationships.
It’s sort of implied that in order to make friends you have to go out into the world to do so. The places where this tends to naturally occur are places like work, outside where you live (neighbors), an exercise class or outdoors club, a professional group, a service club/volunteer activity, church services or church young adult groups, hobby/interest group (there are definitely gardening and sewing clubs or classes), adult recreational sports teams, take an adult ed class, civics/political action group or even start a group of your own (Movie fans?).
The thing is to pick something, see if it’s got interesting looking people there (i.e. around your age within 5-10 years) and if you like the vibe of the group. There’s no law that says you have to stick with it if you don’t like it.
Obviously you don’t want to meet people in bars or loud social clubs if that isn’t your thing. Nor do you want to suggest going to places like that when you’re developing a friendship. I think it’s best to be honest about this upfront if someone asks, so you don’t end up disappointed down the road if someone ends up being a bad fit. Also there’s nothing wrong with having a friend who goes to bars/clubs sometimes, but does other things as well. I have clubbing friends and non-clubbing friends. I just do different things with them.
You wouldn’t go to a library to read (for social purposes), but sometimes libraries have meetings, lectures or groups that meet there for other things, even board games. So it might be a starting point, check with your local library.
Friends can be made anywhere that people gather!
You could go to quiet public places like the library or the coffee shop. Most people mind their business in the cafes and doing their work there. You could approach someone there and make friends
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Maybe find volunteer opportunities that don’t directly involve your hobbies but where you can still meet people.
I’m in the same boat as you. I don’t go out much and all my hobbies are pretty solitary. I’m lonely, but I’m not even sure what I would do with another person. I’ve been looking at some penpal/make friends type of subs, but most of them seem to be populated by horny dudes..
If you like gardening/plants you could try going to plant swaps in your area.
It depends if you really want to make friends or feel you ought to. Neither is wrong but if I really wanted to make friends id be finding ways of sharing my hobbies – gardening is very sociable just because you prefer to do it alone doesnt mean you cant change your habits slightly for a day or two a week because the point is you want to make friends because that also makes you happy. The making friends happiness will outweigh the bit of happiness you lost by not doing your thing alone. Consider helping at a local garden or allotment (UK thing) or helping at a hospital garden, What about gorilla gardening! – or if you like sowing you set up a quilting club or an embroidery club or you volunteer at a homeless shelter and offer to mend clothes. What im saying is if you want to do it you dont throw up the obstacles you look for opportunities.
I was in a similar situation: I like having friends, but don’t like meeting people. In the end, I decided some temporary discomfort was worth it for my future well-being. I don’t like eye exams, but I like being able to see with my glasses. I don’t like meeting people, but you can’t make friends if you don’t meet people first. I still spent a lot of time alone, but I also made a point of taking the proverbial cough medicine and meeting people. And my quality of life is higher now. It was worth it. And it’s OK that I didn’t love every minute of the process.
I’m in the same boat. I am autistic and have a lot of solo hobbies. I want friends but I also don’t want to have to change my life or routine in a major way to find them. I also have pretty major social anxiety. I’m bad at small talk and never know what to say or where to begin.
But I found a group that embroiders together every other week and I have been going to that. I like it because having a thing to do takes the pressure off talking. Also everyone else is doing the same thing so sometimes we all literally sit in silence and stitch near each other. But it also makes it easy to know what’s safe to talk about with these new people. Talking about embroidery or crafts is always ok.
I suggest you take your reading and clipping newspapers to a coffee shop – they serve drinks besides coffee! Doing something unusual like cutting things out is something that makes you approachable because it gives people something to ask about. You can predict the question, so you can have a few answers ready – including one that invites the person to sit and talk.
More generally, you know that you’ll have to make room for another person in your life, right? Screenshots and rewatching scenes is going to have to be put on hold and you might have to do some things which you don’t really want to do at all. Unfortunately other people don’t just show up, flow around all the things you like about your life and fill in the gaps.