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It’s draining for me to reach out to try and convince people, not sure if the social anxiety or the lack of executive functioning.
Any tips for someone that understands and wants community but struggles with the building process?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have had this discussion with my wife, men need activities more than women to bond. My wife can make friends just by randomly running into other women at events or my daughter's activities.
The concept of a social cabin or "men's shed" has been discussed before on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38158616 The phenomenon began in Australia but it has spread to other countries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_shed
But what the author did (organizing drinks) reminds me a lot of a great podcast I heard about putting together cocktail parties, and the social benefits: https://www.artofmanliness.com/people/social-skills/2-hour-c...
It's probably not for everyone, as it seems like a lot of work, and it might be too regimented for many, but I've wanted to do it for a while. Maybe this is the year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The president is a person and can make whatever proclamations he wants. Sometimes people will even do what he says! But the way the system works is: - orange man makes dumb obviously unconstitutional proclamation about flag burning - most likely nobody does anything about it, but if someone does there is a law suit - the courts are like 'lol no' - back to status quo ante
Unfortunately, step 3 is no longer a given.
Generally the courts more reasonable than people think. You hear about the inflammatory rulings because that's what drives clicks.
https://reason.com/2025/06/05/is-the-supreme-court-really-th...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-supreme-courts-part...
538 shows an increase in political polarization, but they're still unanimous on lots of things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The president is a person and can make whatever proclamations he wants. Sometimes people will even do what he says! But the way the system works is: - orange man makes dumb obviously unconstitutional proclamation about flag burning - most likely nobody does anything about it, but if someone does there is a law suit - the courts are like 'lol no' - back to status quo ante
Unfortunately, step 3 is no longer a given.
ugh i hate gen ai images. please dont start ur article with one
Some things that I've picked up last year that are a good starting point:
- timeleft dinners. I get dinner with 5 strangers every few weeks. Tons of fun and you meet a lot of interesting people.
- swing dancing: I went on a date to a social dance and immediately became addicted. It has taken a while to learn the basics, and some of the unwritten rules of the dance floor, but now this is an activity I can take with me to many of my city's social dances and meet all sorts of people. It has greatly improved my social skills and confidence.
I think the biggest different this year will be the amount of effort I put into organizing social events: I've found that everyone seems to be waiting for an invite, but no one wants to do the inviting! OP hinted at this in his article.
I came to the same conclusions as the author. Then I tried something like this and failed to get people interested. It’s draining for me to reach out to try and convince people, not sure if the social anxiety or the lack of executive functioning. Any tips for someone that understands and wants community but struggles with the building process?
I knew someone with the last name ‘Mason’, who would often get asked if he was a Freemason or a decent of one. Eventually he got asked so many times that he decided to join. After that it seemed like he went from not having much of a social life to going out all the time with his Freemason buddies.
Two places I’ve lived have been a short walk to an Elk lodge. If I was a member, I’d imagine that would be a good 3rd place with community. I think VFW would be another one, for veterans, which has also dropped in popularity, but was where my grandfather found his community.
Most of society has relegated fraternal orders participation to their college days. But even in college, most people I knew looked down on fraternities.
I wonder if some of the issue is that most of them require members be religious. With church attendance declining, joining a group that seems to require it is a harder sell. Church itself is also a place where community is built that a lot of people have left behind. I know several people whose entire social network seems to revolve around the church, for better or worse.
Bringing back these groups could really help a lot of people, so everyone isn’t expected do it all on their own or be lucky enough to have a friend who does it for them.
My dad has been very good about keeping up connections throughout his life which looks to be paying off now that he’s retired. But it seems like a significant amount of work that most people aren’t willing to do.
I have an old college roommate who lives less than a mile from me who I have only seen once in the last two years. I think most guys aren’t willing to pick up the phone to set something up, so simply having a place to go, where people are, tends to work out better. My friend who lives nearby is a member at the local country club, which also falls into that bucket of fraternal orders in a way. If I joined that I’d probably see him more, because we’d both have a place to regularly go. I feel weird inviting people over my house to do nothing and just hang out.