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

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

#111

Post by elijaht »

For me it revolves around three pieces (1) doing some hobby activity (2) with the goal of socializing, (3) consistently over a period of time.

For (1)- climbing, board games, team sports are all some ways I specifically do this for, but in a large city almost anything you find interesting probably has a group.

For (2)- I think it's worth explicitly going in with the mindset that you want to be social. For example, I go to the gym for some me time. I have zero gym friends (even though it is a good place to make friends, if you want to). So just showing up won't be enough IMO

For (3)- community needs investment. Most of the best groups I am in did not provide a lot of value to me for months. So you have to stick it out

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

#112

Post by driscoll42 »

I'm a member of my local Rotary, the one I'm part of does a lot of good work around the city. I'm also part of a non-profit, the Chicago Engineers' Foundation (https://www.chicagoengineersfoundation.org/) that I get a lot of value and connections out of. Also a city club to meet other professionals and chat.

But my main was going back to school to get a MBA, met a ton of people that way.

What you want is called a "third place", which has sadly died out in many ways recently. A great way to just meet people from different backgrounds with different interests.

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

#114

Post by osdoorp »

Volunteering. And before you brush it out skeptically, like "oh yeah right, those people", it really doesn't have to be anything you don't care about.

I volunteer at a boat house on the city lake nearby, just putting kids on pedal boats and kayaks. I don't even call it volunteering, I just love kayaks and water.

It's amazing how your perspective of time and people and service shifts, when you spend some time being "in service" to other people, instead of anxiously counting hours that you're being paid for — or could've been paid for — and maximizing "receiving".

I've confirmed for myself time and time again the advice I've read: if you have a busy life and want to increase a feeling that you have more time? — try spending your time for free, for example, volunteering.

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

#116

Post by Barrin92 »

joenot443 wrote: post #63
Zetice wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[flagged]

Jehovah's Witnesses aren't merely some odd religion, they espouse beliefs such as rejecting blood transfusions, including among their children. Which has resulted in deaths. [1] I'm not entirely sure if advertising for a cult that puts people's health at risk is more appropriate on HN than pointing that out in a post that may very well be recruitment.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/boy-dies-after-re...

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

#117

Post by LouisSayers »

Zetice wrote: post #34
geocrasher wrote: post #25

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…

My mum some years back got involved in a church (as a non religious person).

She somehow ended up giving talks at church events and got invited to speak out of town (she would talk about subjects such as helping refugees etc).

Eventually though she felt like she was being excluded in subtle ways and being asked to give too much of her time.

I also went to a couplebbible reading events some years back (free food lol) as my gf used to be religious and wanted me to go along.

Everyone was nice, food was good, but I couldn't get over how everyone in the group would listen to a story (which would literally make zero sense) and swallow it down as if it was a bed time story.

Religion is weird.

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

#118

Post by baggsie »

Mountain Biking - you get a really varied cross section of society bonding over a shared love of getting muddy and acting like 12 year olds in the woods. My club’s age range is from 20 - 76, and contains aCardiac surgeon, plumber, retired clown, journalist, a couple of coppers, a rabbit farmer and of course the requisite number of IT workers the sport attracts.

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

#119

Post by silisili »

aj_g wrote: post #107
silisili wrote: post #88

My neighborhood. When we moved in we sat out front every evening, and made small talk with every single person who walked by. Some were caught off guard, some kinda just waved and moved on, but most stopped to talk. What's interesting is that people who had lived in that neighborhood nearly 20 years together had never talked, and met for the first time as both stopped to chat at nearly the same time. Then we started…

Beautiful. Does it ever feel challenging in any way, like you're fighting against a social norm?

A little, but not terribly much. Maybe it's an age thing, I'm not that old (around 40), but I don't feel weird talking to people I don't know - I quite enjoy it. In fact, I felt rather sad since the rise of smartphones, because a lot of places I use to get small talk(barber, airport, etc), everyone is busy or feigning being busy. But when people are just out enjoying the air, they are more free to chat.

The biggest thing to put aside are first impressions/biases - ie, treating people that you wouldn't normally think you'd be friends with the same. As a lot of my neighborhood are older than we are, that was a lot of people. In a way it's like coworkers, you can't pick them, but some end up being great friends.

It also helped to have a really outgoing child. She'd go riding her bike around the neighborhood, and a few people stopped by because "the little girl on the bike said I should come meet you guys."

I will say it was easier, to me, to do so when first moving in. I personally would feel weird if I'd lived somewhere a long time and never bothered to meet anyone, then started acting more social out of nowhere. But that's probably just in my head.

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