• ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        4·
        2 days ago

        Therein lies the issue

        Irl - going places? Blergh. And I am very privileged to work from home. Do you make friends at like the grocery store? I am confused about this, genuinely

        Online? Seeing people regularly? I don’t understand how people do this. I just kind of browse popular feed and pop in to what looks interesting. But even when I do look into communities more regularly I don’t like notice people. Do you? I’m seriously asking. Is there a platform where this makes more sense? Back when I used reddit I was more engrained to certain communities but there were so many users everyone felt anonymous. Here there are less users but still enough that people feel anonymous.

        for the record I do have autism. I’m also a counselor, funny enough. When people ask me how to make friends I tell them things generally along your advice: to go to places where they can meet more people ideally along lines with common interests. If they really want to focus on this though I usually refer out as this clearly isn’t my strength

        • Of the Air (cele/celes)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          1·
          6 hours ago

          Is there a platform where this makes more sense?

          Places like the microblogging platforms of fedi like mastodon have worked for us. Reddit and Lemmy tend to be fire and forget, so making friends here whilst possible is less likely than say mastodon for example because mastodon is more about talking to people in our opinion.

          There’s also things like Matrix (or Discord) communities which might work especially since DMing is relatively easy and well supported compared to this place.

          • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            1·
            5 hours ago

            So I’m on mastodon but I don’t use it much. I’ve not really connected there. In my experience it’s like screaming into the void, which was very similar to my twitter experience before leaving that shithole. I did have some social connections on twitter but they were people I knew irl in college back from like 2006 when twitter came out. Maybe I have to post more about stuff instead of just non sequiturs and dumb jokes. I do pixel fed too but tbh that place feels a bit ghost towny atm

            The other inherent problem with online socialization for me is that I’m older, late 30s. I work a non traditional job as a self employed counselor so I have the ability to fuck around on my phone and shit post a bit more, like if a client cancels mid day. But when I do have a brief interaction with someone online (even something like this one tbh) there’s a nagging voice in my head that’s like “most people online aren’t like you, you are lucky to have the flexibility you do, there is a decent chance this person is half your age” and then it’s like ohhh maybe I don’t want to encourage a deeper social connection here. It does not help that as part of my job I talk to a not insignificant number of young adults that were groomed online. This is my own shit to sort out though. Thanks for reading my blog, I guess

            I do appreciate your suggestions, genuinely

        • tasho@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          4·
          2 days ago

          irl - I generally find going regularly to something that aligns with your interests helps. eg, taking a hobby class, volunteering, interest-related clubs. but it takes a lot of work to be consistent and doesn’t happen straight away! and you have to go out of your way to interact a lot of the time.

          • ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            3·
            2 days ago

            On one hand I feel hypocritical because again this is very similar to the advice I give people as a counselor and yet I don’t do it. On the other hand I feel validated in that I apparently am not giving people shitty advice, haha

    • Emi@ani.socialEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      Same, thankfully I got lucky few times by messaging in comments and such. Sadly when I get along with someone they live very far away.