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Where is the best place to go to engage in polite conversation with random strangers? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by N0t_5ure@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I've been working on myself after coming out of a toxic long-term relationship that destroyed my social network, and am quite rusty at engaging with people I don't know. I'm also an introvert by nature, but am capable of overruling that nature and engaging with people when I consciously try. At this point I feel like I just need to boost my experience and restore a level of comfort in engaging with people I don't know. When I go out (by myself), I tend to go see live music, which is fun but generally not conducive to conversation. Ultimately I'd like to restore my rusty social skills for the purposes of interacting with members of the opposite sex, but at this point I just need to work on engaging with people in general. WHat say you, people of Lemmy?

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[–] lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Many people's social skills suck these days. I have found the best way to meet new people is to put yourself in a situation where you have to. Several life long friends of mine were forged in the fire of Muay Thai. Still others I met while adding certs to my Padi scuba stuff. When I first moved to NYC many years ago, I went on meetup and found a DND group. I don't recommend it for health reasons, but I met my wife and several other life-long friends via a crippling hookah addiction lol. My point is go places where communication is essential. Many libraries have free cooking classes, etc. Another good place.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

What I struggle with is that I don't use IG and other social media. And a lot of people's polite/casual conversations are entirely based on that stuff.

I notice I have an easy time talking to people over 50, but under 40... it's like I live on a different planet. We have nothing in common to really talk about because they just reference social media stuff and I have no context for it. I quit a bunch of stuff recently because all the new people coming in started straight up being rude/insulting me because my life isn't governed by chasing social media trends or agonizing about response times like theirs is. I get told off by a lot of new people because I don't text back fast enough and they take it as a personal attack or something when I said 'well if it's that important why not call and have real time voice conversation'.

I also prefer face to face interaction and not constantly being in discord/slack chats, which apparently is how everyone under 30 socializes these days.