I’ve been working on myself after coming out of a toxic long-term relationship that destroyed my social network, and am quite rusty at engaging with people I don’t know. I’m also an introvert by nature, but am capable of overruling that nature and engaging with people when I consciously try. At this point I feel like I just need to boost my experience and restore a level of comfort in engaging with people I don’t know. When I go out (by myself), I tend to go see live music, which is fun but generally not conducive to conversation. Ultimately I’d like to restore my rusty social skills for the purposes of interacting with members of the opposite sex, but at this point I just need to work on engaging with people in general. WHat say you, people of Lemmy?
I started taking German classes and it’s a small class of about 15 people and the bulk of them are now casual friends a few years later. Some good friends. It’s awesome.
Yeah I find people to be far more amendable in educational contexts than they are generally. My Russian class is the only place anyone seems to think my interest in Russian literature is cool.
Interesting. I live in Southern California, and have been learning Spanish on my own using the comprehensible input method. I have pretty decent comprehension at this point, and could really use some practice speaking. I’ll look into this.
I went from about eight years on Duolingo, not progressing, and within one year in a class environment, I eclipsed my eight years easily. 4 years in German class, I have friends, and am in Germany now, listening to my wife and her old friends shoot the shit, and I understand a LOT of it. More than they’d like me to 😁
I find i had some luck on the meet up app to find local gaming and hobby groups.
I’m a big advocate of bars. Just sitting at a restaurant bar, hotel bar, or at a local watering hole is a good opportunity to make small talk, chit-chat, and just kill time in general. People aren’t expecting a long term conversation with you, but most are happy to chat while they wait for a drink or their meal. If it is slow, see if the bartender is chatty. Typically they will be bored and not wanting to do any side work and will be happy to talk with you since it looks better to their boss than looking at their phone.
And honestly, i have had some great times at concerts talking up the people around me. Get to the show and wear merch from a similar band and you’ll have loads of people let you know how much they love that band/artist. Ask people standing around you if they are local or had to travel to get there. I feel like i am a shy dude, and i know for a fact that i am awkward as hell, but i have a lot of great interactions with people this way.
I honestly love bars for the social aspect above all. You can strike up a conversation with almost anyone
Yeah, especially if it’s local and you can go there regularly. I’m very fortunate that my little rural town has a great bar scene since there are multiple colleges here, and prices are very low ($2.75 for a bottle of Strohs or Rolling Rock, $6 craft pints). I don’t have cable, so i will usually go to my favorite bar to watch major sports events like the All -Star game, world series, playoff matches, or if ny Cardinals are playing a local team and my MLB is blacked out. Literally all it takes to start a conversation is vocally comment about a play and half the guys in ear shot will give you there opinion as well.
Maybe we could start some “24/7 open convo” Discord server? 🤷 If not, I’d say chatting with your coworkers is a good way to make friends and get some experience.
Standing in lines. In particular self checkout when there are stations roped off. I’ve gotten them open by joking about it with someone within earshot of an employee.
You can also ask employees about stupid policies like that, or otherwise pointless things they have to do. People love to complain
