I’m in a new town for work. Been here 6 months now. I don’t know anyone in the area. I started going to coed sports and CrossFit to get myself exposed to new people. I would consider myself a fairly sociable guy but it’s still challenging building a deeper connection with strangers you are only seeing for a short period. I’m wondering if anyone has any tips for getting welcomed/invited into a new social circle or starting one from scratch. How does one get to that deeper level of connection? I imagine it takes time but I also imagine I have to be proactive about it. Thank you
4 comments
I would try inviting coworkers out or some people from the coed sports that you get along well with. Could always suggest going out for drinks or a dinner, even invite the people on the team over for drinks/games!
No guarantee it’ll happen fast but I’d say start smiling at people and maybe start striking up small talk with people more consistently. Eventually maybe u can take it further than that and get invited or invite ppl out to do something. Wish u the best!
As a guy who is also fairly new in my town (been in my town for 5). Building close friendgroup has a lot to do with luck. Yes you can do alot of things like social groups and other things but having that go-to friend group is hard to make.
I’ll give you my experience. I started doing meetups, where someone will post an event in an app called MeetUp, where people just meetup to make friends. I did alot of this. I also did co-ed sports, and hiking groups. TBH, for the first 3 months I had friends but nothing consistent. Noone I could just text and say “let’s hangout”. Then I got closer with 1 friend because we just kept running into each other at meetups and we always enjoyed going to meetups together because it gets tiring going up to strangers in hopes that it will lead to something. Even then this friend was very busy. Then in one meetup him and I talked to these 3 girls and they enjoyed talking to us. 2 of the girls (they were roommates) invited us to hangout with them that night with their 3rd roommate. We did and they started to invite us to game nights and other friendly events. We basically became part of their friend group. Now I can say I ahve a consistent group of friends. But had it not been for that one night that I decided to approach those 2 girls, i’d probably be in the same situation of just having 1 go-to friend who was always busy.
I also have a good amount of casual friends who if they ever plan something im probably not the first person they invite but if theres enough invites going around they send one my way.
My advice to you would be. If you havent already download the meetup app and go to as many events as you can and want to. Ill be honest most events are very hit or miss. I tend to go to ones that have alot of people around my age going (mid 20s) because if 40 people sign up only 20 end up going. Keep doing the co-ed sports and crossift, but maybe join things that will keep most your days busy. I joined a hiking group to keep my sundays busy.
With the people you’ve connected with through these active groups, you’d need to make plans with them outside of the sport so you can have time to get to know one another and build on a connection where there aren’t any distractions. Perhaps going out for lunch, dinner, etc.