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Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

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71–80 of 585 posts

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#71
Eaaasy:

- Meetup.com - If you don't find a community for something you want to do, then start one!

- Local sports clubs

- Volunteering

- Start going to EDM parties - pretty soon you'll see the same people. Say, "hi".

- Facebook groups for pretty much everything.

- Do what kids in the 80's did, and many still do: go to the local playground, and ask if you could also play with them.

You're not too old, you're not too "different". Don't be a pussy, and get out of your head.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#72
post #56
post #53

I live in a very transient city with very little tech industry, which also happens to be a city where half the population leaves every April/May through October/November. Community has been hard, especially meeting new folks. There have been a few community tech events that have come and gone, and I've been lucky enough to meet a few friends through that. I joined a gym 4 years ago, and a lot of my friends now I've m…

I can't imagine anything worse than going to the gym. What do you do there? Walk on a treadmill like a mouse in a laboratory? Also, you come back starving because you've burned calories, probably eating way more than you should due to being famished. And it's also extremely boring. I've tried it once or twice, but I just can't handle it. Genuinely interested in how some people manage to consistently keep going to the…

Cardio exercise is absolutely dreadful. Try lifting weights, heavy ones (after studying form via YouTube videos and verifying that your form is correct on lighter weights). Pushing your limits is neither boring nor time-consuming. 45 minutes is enough for a vigorous workout.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#73
HONK!-style bands - street/brass bands - you don't need to be good - you can learn an instrument and just hang out and play fun music. Through mine, we've played at Mardi Gras (Chewbacchus), Timber!, Burning Man events, Comicons, birthdays, weddings, etc.

The Seattle festival is this weekend, see: https://honkfestwest.org/

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#74
post #19

Raves, particularly ones that are designed to be “transformative” like Lightning in a Bottle in California. Music festivals with camping are magical ways to build community and inspire yourself around other like minded and curious people. I never attended these events until a near death experience prioritized my love of dancing in my early 30. Now nearly 10 years later I'm even more convinced this is the way.

How do you find out about these? I hear about some by word of mouth but I'd like to accelerate the process.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#75
post #34

You asked, so I'll tell you: My local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. https://jw.org . I've never been happier in my life, and the sense of purpose, community, and security has never been higher. I won't espouse any religious teachings here, that's what the link above is for should you choose to visit it. The most amazing part is that it's genuine and trustworthy. It's all made of imperfect humans to be sure, bu…

Eh, it's genuine as long as you subscribe to their set of beliefs. This may not be a problem for you, but for folks who care about reality, it could be more difficult. The difference between this and say, a rec soccer team, is that it's an all-or-nothing endeavor. You can't "casually" become a Jehovah's Witness (or any other religion), you have to decide that your entire life is aligned to those principles. I'm not k…

Religious cults prey on the weak. Their entire recruitment ethos is based around offering vulnerable people help in times of need.

Nobody joins for purely the social aspect. "All or nothing" is fairly accurate.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#76
post #64

Reading the comments, I notice a lot of posters seek out tech communities. While I get why a nerd would want to do that, I have a different tendency. Most of my outside-of-work activities are actually not tech related. Sure, I have a bunch of private projects to work on, but I usually do that in single player mode. I picked up a number of "also working in tech" friends over time, and going out with them is still fun…

> I notice a lot of posters seek out tech communities. While I get why a nerd would want to do that, I have a different tendency.

Absolutely! I genuinely enjoy writing code at work, but I literally never do it in my spare time. I already spend a greater number of waking hours in front of my computer than I do with my friends and family (or playing music, or mountain biking, or...).

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#78
Open source projects. I am building a side project in Rust and contribute to crates along the way. I also do 3d printing of stuff - I’m building a device to freeze air (co2 waypoint hit, next oxygen and nitrogen) using only thermoelectric chips and all the enclosures etc I’m designing in build123d a parametric cad system in Python. So I have a lot of discord communities that I interact with and it’s been great. Since I started working from home 6 years ago I’ve also built up a network of nerd friends in my local community / neighborhood that I interact with regularly. In fact remote work has let me build a real community in my life. Being very senior your relationships at work can be very transactional. Being locked into a human hamster wheel chicken coop with a bunch of people who need something from me all work day then the rest of my day commuting and being exhausted meant I was very lonely.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#79
My girlfriend used Bumble BFF to find friends and the friends she found had partners. We found a community surprisingly quickly. But we explicitly wanted the opposite of what it seems many here want: more friends in tech. We wanted a more balanced community.

Now we have friends we hike with, mountain bike with, ski with, go mushroom foraging, host dinners, play trivia, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Where have you found community outside of work?

#80
post #48
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's an all-or-nothing endeavor I don't know anything about Jehovah's Witnesses but certainly there are a lot of religions that are comfortable with people coming by out of curiosity and/or participating sporadically. I think that's how most people do it.

They're referring to what happens if you join the faith, and then leave it: Defellowshipping, aka shunning.

I googled the word and the first google hit tells me that if I am following those rules, it's not cool for me to say hello to someone in that state of being.
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