131–140 of 585 posts
Chess isn't even something we regularly talk about, anymore.
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 "…
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 "i…
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 "i…
My anxiety has gone down a lot since I started doing this and I was able to meet some new people. Strongly recommend trying to volunteer with something you care about
The common element was that they were all new to town.
One girl declined my spare room but said she'd like to see me again, and one time I told a guy he had some cool pics in his profile, and we ended grabbing a drink and formed a bit of a friend group around playing board games.
So... maybe go house hunting?!
Discord is another, oddly enough. The story is a bit messy, but there was an "offical" server attacked to a subreddit for my location (think r/). That was, frankly, a terrible server, but I eventually found myself migrating onto a splinter server with a few other folks who felt the same way and together we've cultivated our own community. Again, the space serves as a clearinghouse for ad hoc meetups, group coffees, GWD[1] teams, groups who go to the musical theater together, etc.
These online spaces are good examples of places that have cultivated norms around high psychological safety. In other words, behaviors that lower psychological safety are seen as destructive to the space. The high psychological safety there means that I can probably meet up with any random person in these spaces and be able to trade some degree of vulnerability with them and actually form meaningful connection.
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…
Related to why I've had limited friendships. I've wanted fewer, high quality ones as overshooting my social needs is uncomfortable, and I'm a creature of habit. Used to overcorrect towards solitude and that backfires, but I've had friendships in the past where I dreaded having to meet.
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…
...until you decide it's not for you and you are summarily kicked out and effectively exiled.
I am glad it works for you but JW acts like cult, and probably is a cult. I've seen first hand the damage it does to people who choose to no longer partake.
From this source: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4zzruz/iama_exjehovah...
'Those who leave the faith are called "apostates" and are "disfellowshipped", a term for formal expulsion and shunning, where members are "prohibited from talking, and even from saying 'hello' to them".