Hi! I need friends please.

[Barely Legend]

Hi! I live in Everette,WA, and the only social life I currently have is two cats, a nine year old, and my mom, all of whom are great but do not share my interests. I like horror movies, tabeltop gaming (both p!aying and DMing), videogames, magic the gathering, paganism, irony the laughter of children, trolling both on the internet and IRL whenever possible, yaoi, various boring stuff ( to others at least) such as evolutionary biology, cultural and religious history, linguistics, British people narrating animals murdering each other, and murder (how it's solved, not committing it). I also am trying to get back into art after a 6 year hiatus, so a drawing buddy would be great!

Anyway if any of this sounds like something you might be interested in talking to please let me know.

Game systems I am familiar with:
Pathfinder/dnd 3.0-3.5/d20 in general
WOD/NWOD
Conan/Call of Cthuluh
Mutants and Masterminds
Random bull****

[Delicious Taffy]

Friends are just murderers waiting to strike. What you need is a buddy. Less investment, most of the benefits, and much less risk on your end. Plus, buddies are easier to manage in larger numbers.

[zuberitalal]

I think people or friends are better when they are in touch. Long lost friends dont remain the same as you miss a big portian of their lives

[Anonymouswizard]

irony the laughter of children

Not heard of that TCG.

In all seriousness, as an adult with very nerdy interests, making friends is hard. My first suggestion is to get online and look for local clubs which do things like this. My second suggestion is to talk to people, especially at these clubs.

[Celticbear]

I live no where near ya, but you seem alright. Long distance friends, mayhaps?

[The Eye]

My advice as someone who until 2017 was also friendless is to go out and make some friends, it's not as hard as it seems.

Best way to do it in my experience is to join a group.

I joined a hobby group who play games in the local game shop; from there I made friends with all sorts of people, people who I never dreamed of making friends with.

Some of these people were fitness freaks for example, people I never saw as capable of being interesting or tolerable. They were nice and I ended up joining a gym to improve my health and self-steam.

The gym was also a good place to make friends, not the best place to make friends since people are there to exercise not socialize but you end up making friends anyway.

One of the girls I meet at the gym "forced" me to start an Italian course, something I always wanted to learn and now my classmates are some of my closest friends.

So yeah in the spam of one year I now have four different groups of friends.

Going out really helps, friends won't just pop up, maybe you could join an art course?

[Knaight]

You're clearly amenable to the idea of trying to find local friends on the internet. Given that, I'd suggest taking a look at meetup.com, which is basically exactly that. It works better for major metropolitan areas, but even with cities of only 50,000 or so it should still be pretty solid.

[Elanasaurus]

The Eye knows what he's talking about.

[lex109]

If you're into paganism I highly suggest visiting witchvox.com (it literally saved my life when I was a teenager and had no one to talk to about any pagan-ie things). They've got lists of stores and groups and personals on there for people who need to find something close to them (or virtual pen pals).

Also, I definitely second what everyone else has said about going out and joining a group. Maybe use Yelp to find a local hobby shop. If you're into the tabletop RPGs or board games they usually will have nights where people can come and play and that's a great place to meet fellow nerds. Lots of people!

[Scarlet Knight]

I'm guessing from your post that you're a teenager & I feel obligated to say this in case you're legit in your desire and not just trolling: the internet is no place to make friends as none of it is real .

Follow the Eye's advice; there are plenty of groups to join that will help you meet flesh and blood humans who can make great friends.

Especially if you're trying to foster some of your ... interests. Remember the old (-ish) saying about the internet: "Where men are men, women are men, and children are the FBI."

[Elanasaurus]

I'm guessing from your post that you're a teenager & I feel obligated to say this in case you're legit in your desire and not just trolling: the internet is no place to make friends as none of it is real .

Follow the Eye's advice; there are plenty of groups to join that will help you meet flesh and blood humans who can make great friends.

Especially if you're trying to foster some of your ... interests. Remember the old (-ish) saying about the internet: "Where men are men, women are men, and children are the FBI."

While I agree that the internet is not a good place to make friends, I do think it's possible to develop connections that mitigate the loneliness of a teenager. Speaking from experience.

In friendships, the friends still have to trust each other to tell the truth of themselves and their lives. On the internet, one's age, sex, appearance, and location are hidden, but we can still choose to trust what one says of these areas, just like we trust people we meet face-to-face.

And there are still many things we can find out about a person on the internet. For example, the people on this forum. 2D8HP is a funny person with a lot of knowledge on America and the '70s. Peelee is quite clever and quick to answer questions. Grey Wolf is devoted to OOtS, reads OOtS observantly, and knows quite a lot about D&D, as evidenced in the MitD thread. Digo Dragon likes MLP and also its crossover fanfiction with Fallout. Zimmerwald1915 is a snarker. I'm sure you know plenty more characters on this forum.

It is possible to make connections with people online solely based on what they know and what they like. Aren't friendships started because of common areas of knowledge and interest anyway? The one common area of interest for everyone in this forum is OOtS. Most of you also like D&D. And simply talking to people about things one likes gives a teenager a huge feeling of belonging that is almost as healing as a friendship.

[2D8HP]

Hi! I live in Everette,WA, and the only social life I currently have is...

Social life?

Why are you wasting time on a social like when Seattle is just about 30 miles away?

Go to the bookstores!

My wife grew up in Seattle, and when we visited her parents (this was some years ago) I found both used and new bookstores that passed "the Lord Dunsany test" (that is are they any books by or about Lord Dunsant)!

Pick a suitable alternate author if you wish.

How do I go about meeting new people? Like... What do I do?

If you feel you must:

Adventurers League

or

Pathfinder Society

to play fun games, and

Habitat for Humanity

to do good (or similar).

Maybe I should give more concrete examples:

Most people I meet today, I meet through work, and I'm not actually trying to meet new people, so how have I met people in the past?

At age 11 I brought a Dungeons & Dragons rulebook to school and a classmate saw me reading it and invited me to game with him and some teenagers (his older brother and friends).

At age 14 I had a deep interest in politics and government and joined the Debate club where I made some friends (all older than me and about to graduate).

At age 16 I walked into the local college radio station and volunteered, did that four another five years, made friends all "adults".

At age 18 I volunteered at the Gilman Street Project (a mostly Punk Rock music club), did that intensely for two years, until I met my wife. Made friends got thanked on the liner notes of a few records.

Between 17 and 25?, I participated in some rock bands, (very badly as I'm a terrible musician but if I had a talent it was in strong-arming folks to form a band), this is how I met my wife.

At age 25 I got a microfiche of the parts list for my motorcycle (which I read using the library microfiche machines), and when I bought parts for it I provided the part numbers which impressed a lady at a motorcycle shop who hired me..

Motorcycling dominated my social circle for the next 7 years, during which I knew seven fellow riders who died, four in the last year I regularly rode (I did a small bit of riding afterwards, which I stopped when my son was born).

At 32 to 40 I volunteered for political campaigns and habitat for humanity on occasion, and met some nice folks that way.

For the most part meeting new people was incidental to the activities, but if I remember correctly at 14 to 19-ish I felt very lonely (despite being surrounded by people) and wanted to be "loved", and "understood", but here's the thing, I remember that many of my classmates called me by my name, but I mostly didn't know theirs! If I paid more attention to the people around me and less to the static in my mind, I would have likely realized that I had no need to feel lonely.

Based on a wild guess of your age Barely Legend at around Twenty?:

IIRC you'll find a lot more people with the time and inclination to do social activities who are near that age than older (until they retire).

If you're just looking for someone to spend a few evenings with?

Then be cute and bartend at art gallery show openings, that worked for me when I was in my 20's (and would definitely not work for me now as I now have the face of goblin with a personality to match).

When I was in my 20's I had friends who definitely gained friends (and romances) while doing community theater.

Wow, in writing this I'm starting to get jealous of all the cool people my younger self knew! I wouldn't want the poverty again though.

Maybe "Youth is wasted on the young" as the saying goes, but wealth is wasted on the old!

Be open to romance when it happens, but it's a waste of time to obsess about seeking it.

Make art!

Build community!

Tell jokes!

If your looking for advice (you may very well just want the catharsis, of expressing your thoughts), it is well to still pursue relationships (I.e. connections/conversations) with other people, but avoid for now seeking "relationships" (romance).
In fact avoid thinking about your personal happiness much at all.

Instead pretend to take an interest in the well-being of others (collegues, students, grocery store clerks,, street beggers etc).
Ask them how their doing, pretend you care, maybe take a week off and volunteer for something like habitat for humanity.Tell jokes and try to get someone to smile. Do good work. Get outside your head and "fake it till you make it".

Even if you never get very happy, you'll at least have made the world a better place, and you may get some small satisfaction from that. In my experience happiness usually comes when your too busy to look for it.

I got a lot of people angry when I suggested on the Confessions thread that between work and family duties most "adults" (non-students) just don't have time for "friends", and if that sounds like the case for you, glad you have this Forum!

Here's some of what I have spent time doing with people who were neither co-workers or family:

1) Union meetings.
Admittedly some guys at the meetings were former and future co-workers, but few have been current co-workers, and mostly it's been folks I never worked with. I knew one great guy who besides going to Union meetings would also go to a Freemason Lodge near my home, such was his love of being in a "Guild" (being in a sevice club is similar).

2) Volunteering.
I've definitely met people by volunteering for "Habitat for Humanity", and precinct walking.

3) Dungeons & Dragons!

My experience has been that after leaving high school (I wasn't privileged with a University education), there just simply isn't the freetime to maintain the kind of friendships I had as a youth, but a half-dozen folks at the "Confessions" thread were kind enough to alert me to the fact that other people still find the time!

Good Luck!

...people on this forum. 2D8HP is a funny person with a lot of knowledge on America and the '70s. ...:

Aw thanks Elanasaurus!

Though in my case it's not so much "knowledge on America and the '70's" as it is "a brain so pickled in that there's not much knowledge left of anyrhing besides the USA in the 1970's"

[Peelee]

Are you interested in Star Wars and dressing up all fancy? Washington's local 501st base is Garrison Titan, where the people can help you make super awesome screen-accurate Star Wars villain costumes, and you can do awesome stuff like go to Children's Hospitals on Star Wars Day, or dance on stage with Weird Al when he needs stormtroopers when he does The Saga Begins and Yoda. Cool opportunities if you like that, awesome charity work if you like that, badass Star Wars costumes if you like that. It's an awesome group.

Also, this may surprise you, but the people who join up tend to be on the nerdy side, so they're also pretty awesome to hang out with. Met one of my best friends through the 501st.

[Elanasaurus]

Aw thanks Elanasaurus!

Though in my case it's not so much "knowledge on America and the '70's" as it is "a brain so pickled in that there's not much knowledge left of anyrhing besides the USA in the 1970's"

That's what you claim, anyway.

[Onyx]

Hi, I can be your friend. I'm a dog lover, I have 3 giant labradors and all of them are naughty when together, so I'm thinking of having a cage fore each one of them. Upon searching I saw these large dog crate which will be perfect for my pets, what do you think about this cage? I'm open for more suggestions though. How about you? Do you have any pets?

[Elanasaurus]

They have two cats.