I never had a social life, either romantic or platonic, and I’m wondering if anyone else has gone from 0 social life to an active one past college. Like I wasted college just going to classes and I graduated already. Thoughts?
Absolutely. I was an absolute loner for the better part of a decade. Then my depression just disappeared. I joined a community around a streamer and had loads of fun. Just find the intersection between your preferred subject (literary analysis, anime tiddies, etc.) and your preferred communication method. (Text forum, voice chat, real life meetings, etc.) You’ll find at least someone you can hang with, maybe more. Just go at it with openness and joy.
Nah. You can make friends at any age. Most of it comes down to showing interest in the person you want to befriend and asking them about themselves.
Imo as an ADHD person this world best for me. The hard part is finding the interesting person I wanna befriend. Most have happened casually through games or events. If you board game. Or pickle ball. Or shit join a cooking class. Good chance you’ll be interested in someone in the bunch.
As someone mentioned before: play boardgames. The nice thing is you don’t need any cause we gamers already have plenty and are always looking for people to play with.
Also go volunteering. You’ll meet people of different ages, genders and backgrounds. I myself volunteer in a youth centre in my neighbourhood. Initially I knew no one on the streets. Now people recognise me, teens and parents alike, say hello and acknowledge me. I myself like this. It makes the neighbourhood feel more welcoming and save. Initially I „hid“ behind our counter having a save distance between me and the teens until I felt comfortable and feeling like I can intrude their space. It takes time. But it is worth it.
Can second boardgames. these are the sociable nerds
13 of my 18 friends I found when I was 30-35… My dad made the same experience in his 50s. Friends come and go. It’s rather unusual to get to the end of your life with the same friends you had in school.
You number friends?
They are obviously ranked too. duh. Number 1 and 2 are always fighting for rank. With 18 friends they only have 2 left in the 20 friend limit. It’s very competitive.
I mean he needed his MySpace top 8
My 20s were complete garbage. I can’t remember most of what happened there because nothing ever happened. At the end I didn’t see any hope for myself and had some disturbing thoughts. But I’ve come around somehow and met my now best friends and many other nice people during my 30s. I owe them my life basically. Though I still have trouble finding romantic connection and I’m not trying anymore.
Where I meet people: At work, neighbors, hiking or board game groups
I think it’s important to get out and meet many different people, even without ever becoming friends. You learn social skills, you have more things to talk about with others, you feel more accepted in general, it’s a spiral upwards.
It’s never too late.
My most social years were in my 30’s!
You start a social life many times on your life. The people around you will change many times, and your relationships will change as well.
Don’t feel pushed to start a social life.
Also, it’s a skill you will take time thlo learn and make lots of mistakes, don’t worry, it’s normal.
And don’t look for others approval in general, ota just wrong, but perfectly normal to look for. Still wrong
I feel like the most important thing to take away here is to not feel pushed to have a social life. One city I lived in I had one friend I really considered a friend and the rest were mostly in the background (though fun to hang out with time to time).
For me a social life is enough if I find a single person who is capable of listening and rolls with bouncing ideas off each other.
May or may not apply to OP but zero social life sounds like they’re an introvert.
I’ve had close to 0 social life in high school and the first year of college.
What turned me around was joining a board game club.What I’ve learned from this experience is that everyone
has a minimum and maximum amount of time and slots for friendships
and newcomers are the ones most likely with empty friendships slots.Of course it’s not too late, it only appears harder because in school we spent a lot of time during the week with many people the same age. But only a fraction of that time is needed, all it takes is being around people and talking to people.
Many on lemmy rightly complain of the lack of “third spaces” nowadays in many of the richer countries (you said college I’m guessing US or UK?), so for example in many places it’d be a bit weird to just go to the pub alone. But you can also just go alone and do and enjoy whatever you want, it just takes a bit more confidence, the embarassment of it usually wears off with age for most.
What’s probably easier is joining some semi-regular activity where you get to chat. So pub quiz night, language exchange, chess club, hiking group, etc… are more likely to aid you in this compared to loud night clubs, the gym, or whatever, it’s all subjective it’s still important to do the stuff you enjoy, regardless of socializing.
Mid 20s? You’re barely out of your teenage years, of course you can. Now if anyone has some tips for mid 40s…
Of course you can, it just requires more work. Find a group of like-minded people by joining a evening class; group training; volunteer at an event; etc…
It requires a lot of effort, but it’ll be worth it in the end.
No its not too late
Find a hobby you like and look for local groups of people / classes in that hobby. With time you will make personal connections with people in that group.
Could be workouts, activism, trekking, board games, knitting, book club, debates. Anything that does not involve staring at a screen.
Congrats on graduating! And to answer your question: no, it’s not too late. However, fair warning: it does seem to get harder to develop a social life the older you get. But by no means impossible.
