4mo ago

How to find interesting friends as a young adult.

I have many interests, if not too many. From cooking, woodwork and computers. Many of my friends are academically very successful but are frankly painfully boring and I sometimes feel isolated around them.

I like to cook when they hang at my house, I'll try to teach them how, some basic tips, etc. As soon as I glanced towards them again I realized they walked off.

This summarizes a lot of our interactions. As we get to a topic I understand and can speak passionately about, they sort of turn off. They talk to each other fine, but it's often internet drama, school drama or sports.

I'm not in college\classes and it seems almost impossible to meet others, especially others that are interesting and curious. I find myself bonding most to adults but it's isolating I can't find others my age.

19 comments

Listening is a skill. Be more interested in them and don't try so hard to be interesting. (Being interested is being interesting).
Ask questions and get them to open up with your active listening. At some point, they will show more interest in what you're doing. Being a host is all about letting your guests shine. Not giving them a TED talk.

If a friend invited me over and they launched into an unsolicited cooking lesson, I would think they are a pretentious twat, lol. There's always context of course, but I'm not looking for friends who push their knowledge on me without my invitation.
Mutual interests, or expressed interest to learn more in either direction, groovy. One way info dumping, nope.
Listen I brew beer. It can get kinda repetitive and boring. Sometimes I invite friends over to keep me company and I don't lecture on sanitization and chemistry because that's not what they came for. The occasional friend does want to learn about brewing, they express that wish, and then I explain some things to them. Some friendships are good for the former, some for the latter, and it's on you to navigate which is which.
- I didn't mention that the entire meetup was to cook together, everyone got to choose what we cooked, and everything I cooked was for them. They were going to college and most mentioned needing to learn, so I thought I'd show them the basics.
  I ended up cooking everything myself alone. It felt disrespectful because they agreed to help and they didn't bother to include me in their conversation away in the living room.
  
  they were probably just there for the free food
  
  I'm pretty darn explicit when I invite a person over to help with beer what it will entail; lots of cleaning, wear comfy clothes that can get wet and dirty, there will be heat and weird smells, and a small amount of physical labor. Still want to come? Cool. If not? Swing by in 4-6 weeks to enjoy a beer with me after it's fermented and carbonated.
  And I never invite more than one, maybe two people. Anymore than that and folks are just standing around, unable to participate. If you have a genuine interest in teaching on your end, and a genuine interest to learn from a friend or two, I would recommend changing your approach to how you plan these events and try again. It sounds fun but one-teaching-a-group sounds like very challenging logistics.

Maybe because they have no desire to let you teach them things they have no interest in?
It sounds like you expect them to hang around and watch you do things you like... Of course they walk away if it's not interesting to them.
So yeah, you need to find other friends somewhere, just like you say. It's difficult.

What's wrong with us? Are we too boring for you?
Joking.
In all seriousness though, why don't you try some local meetups for certain hobbies? A lot of major cities have stuff like that if you live in one. How about anyone at work if it's possible for you? Volunteer work is another possibility if you have the time.
When it comes to your friends have you tried looking into what they find interesting? Is it stuff that you don't find interesting yourself? You don't need to have all hobbies in common but if you have 1 or 2 you can just focus on those.
Best of luck.

Definitely echo the finding shared interest groups. Lucky for you cooking, woodworking, and computer groups tend to be super prevalent in most places. The one bit of added advice I’d offer that has served me very well is that you don’t need to limit yourself to friends your age. Some of the best friends I’ve ever made were in their late 40s/early 50s when I met them in my early 20s. Not limiting yourself by age of folks opens up some amazing friendship opportunities and it’s awesome to get into conversations with folks that had vastly different experiences than you due to the age difference and you can provide them with some interesting context as well. Good luck out there!

Find your local makerspace! You will be super useful to people and able to help them out with your woodworking and computer skills, you will learn new skills adjacent to those hobbies from others and you can bake some treats to take along that will win you instant fans! Also, makerspaces attract people of a wide range of ages and backgrounds that will share many of your interests! It's a win-win-win!

Something here seems off. Supposedly the occasion was explicitly to cook together, but then they came and refused to cook?
Either you let yourself be taken advantage on by going ahead and voluntarily cooking FOR all of them (instead of WITH), or the expectations weren't clear around what the gathering was for. Maybe for them it was just about chatting nonsense all along, not about cooking.
Throughout your post you mention "they are boring", you "try to teach them", you can't find "othets who are interesting and curious". I say this in a good way: Have you considered maybe it's an attitude problem?
I've read three paragraphs from you and I already have an impression you're snobbish and think you're better than everyone else. (Everyone else is boring, right?)
My point is there are a lot of layers here, and you have a role in it too. If they didn't want to cook, why did you do it yourself voluntarily? Why didn't you just say "Hey guys, so are we cooking or should we just order something delivered?"
I think you're putting your effort in the wrong place. You are doing very specific things and you are expecting very specific things from your friends, maybe just don't.
Be curious instead, listen to their 'boring' stuff and try to get involved. Listen to the people and not the topic. Why would they care about what you have to tell them, if your opinion of the things they are passionate about is:
... they are frankly painfully boring...
It sounds like you talk a lot, but don't listen enough.

Underground techno parties. Lots of cool people.

Find people that share common interests with you

OP are you autistic?
- pff maybe. I know I already have ADHD
  
  I find it easier to make friends with people that are also on the spectrum and then other stuff comes on top of it, rather than trying to find friends through a shared interest and then trying to adjust to normies strange way of being 😅 (although it seems that many of my friends that I made through a shared interest in the first place later turned out to be on the spectrum...)

I like Linux and computers but I'm very boring otherwise. Interested?
- Yeah, need to hop off windows myself. Just haven't found the time

19 comments