finding friends

[firecat]

inspired by snippy

for some folks, online friends don't fill the same social needs as in-person friends.

for those of you who have had difficulty at times making in-person friends, and have found ways to solve that problem, what worked for you?

Some things that have worked for me are

• inviting co-workers to a home-made dinner
  
• joining and organizing ongoing religious/spiritual groups (in my case, eclectic/women's spirituality/shamanic)
  
• participating in and organizing in-person meetings of people I knew from online forums
  

Things that seem to work for other people that don't usually work for me are

• parties
  
• bars
  
• volunteering (I love volunteering, but I haven't usually made friends that way)
  
• classes
  

Comments

[fattest.livejournal.com]

The vast majority of my close friends began as lovers. One of them now jokes about how fucking is/was my way of saying "hi." It was a viable strategy for a while, but now I'm trying something new. Some things I'm doing now to develop friendships include:

- doing projects together (zines, art, music)
- taking classes together
- cooking meals together or for each other
- offering assistance, sharing of my skills
- offering and asking for support, like rides, accompaniment to the doctor, emotional support, etc.
- networking, introducing people to each other, being community-minded