Preferably in real life and without religion or alcohol.
Society, community… these are abstract terms. You cannot talk to them. The cannot love you.
Life happens when you meet people (not abstractions).
Well then, I guess if I were to rephrase the question, I’d ask:
Where are some places or contexts where you can find a group of 5-30 people who meet regularly, generally feel connected to one another, and won’t spend the whole time staring at their phones?
How about hobbies? If everyone in the group is passionate about fishing, knitting, model airplanes, flower bouquets, wood working, painting or something like that, you’ll have plenty to talk about. If you talk to people, and get to know them a little better, you’ll suddenly begin to feel more connected.
Hobbies are the best way to meet people wanting to do something (beside looking at their phones, I mean).
- I was into scale models, people would meet to do (and to talk) scale models.
- I play chess (irl), people will meet to play (and to talk) chess
- Sketching/painting/photo/art. Here in my city it’s not hard to find people that like to do urban sketching or go out to take pictures, or go to expo, museums and so on.
Have you look around what IRL activities are related to hobbies you may be into? You may also ask your local public library, if they do not organize activities themselves they will probably have info on some other org doing it.
How does this codswallop have eight upvotes? OP asked a perfectly reasonable question and this is word salad.
Neo, you dingus.
I’m still trying to figure this out for myself.
You just need to put yourself around people as much as possible.
If your circumstances are that it isn’t possible, you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. You perhaps could then make it your goal to relocate or put yourself in a position where you can be around people.
What kind of stuff are you into?
Recently I’ve been getting into making digital art and reading books. Though I haven’t done much of either yet. These are new hobbies that I just discovered my enjoyment of and I’m just getting into them for the first time.
The workplace?
The closest I had to this actually was my old workplace, but power dynamics, workplace stress, and a lack of shared purpose were my biggest problems.
Having your behavior controlled by management, friendly coworkers who suddenly become cold-hearted backstabbers if they find out they can gain financially from it, etc
Stressful days where we were overworked also brought out the worst in everyone, including me at the time, which was also not fun…
Depending on the job, there could also just be a lot of people who don’t want to be there other than for the money, and in those cases, there isn’t really a uniting greater purpose that everyone believes in.
I think it might work for some people, but the conditions have to be right. For me personally, the corrosive and anti-social influence of money makes me wary of really trusting or connecting with people on a genuine level in work environments.
Meetup has helped - especially around RPGs and board games. Having a weekly group of friends meeting up with a shared topic helps.
If you’re physically able, go somewhere people are willing to teach you something :) Try a climbing gym.
The first hurdle will be working up the courage to ask for advice (on a route, on equipment, about an event) and the next will be showing up often enough that you’re a recognizable part of the community.
