trichoserious

This. All laws still apply. Still gotta tip-toe to be on the safe side and CYA.

This does kind of gloss over step 1, which other people have talked about… being around people. If you don’t drink, bars aren’t really an option. This just has to cater to what you like to do. There are places for people that like videogames, there are places for people that like guns, literally whatever you like there are other people that like it and places that you can be around them. For me it has been work and being a regular at bars and restaurants. Just go to a place that you can spend time, mind your own business there, and eventually you end up talking to people. Seems to be the case for me at least.

There is a lot of data about this, especially for men, it’s simply hard to make new friendships as you get older.

That said, this has been my experience:

I am solidly middle-aged. When I was in my mid-20s I became a parent and had some personal things going on which ended up alienating some friends. After college, my friend group that I had developed spread across the world and we all lost touch to a degree. This is commonplace for folks that don’t stay in their hometowns.

Covid allowed a lot of those friendships to rekindle as we were all at home and connected digitally.

What was a major challenge for me though was relocating and trying to find new friends. It’s easy to date, there’s an app for that. Finding platonic friends though? Extremely hard, it seemed… I spent a lot of time at bars, and have made a lot of friends that way, but they almost never left the bar. What I changed and has allowed me to have some new real friendships (it only took a bunch of years) is just facing the situation and asking people if they want to do things. They’re usually open to it, and if they’re not… forget about it. Move on. If there’s someone at work that’s into the same things that you’re into, let’s say… baseball… tell 'em you’ve got tickets to a game and see if they want to come. Going to a concert? Mention it and see what people say, if someone expresses interest ask if they want to go and meet up for food beforehand.

Friendship is something that we overcomplicate for fear of rejection. Those fears are often unwarranted and when you do experience rejection that’s when you practice your coping skills and self-soothing.