Ask HN: How do you make friends / potential startup partners? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you make friends / potential startup partners?

5 pointscolund5 comments

I'm curious about how other geeky people here make new friends IRL. I'm approaching 40 and I've realized that many other people have families and kids and thus seem to have little time/interest in making new friends to hang out with or create a new interesting startup with. Do you prefer to stay home, read HN and other news or do you call someone and say "let's have a beer" or do you go to meetups and exchange contact details? Or do you do something completely different?

I'm primarily asking for input from people who are not students but who work and don't have a family.

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Honestly, it's hard as hell for adults to make new friends. It's hard as hell for most adults to even maintain the friendships they have, what with moving around and more formalized obligations like family.

In practice, you make them at work - and that's it, because that's the only place where you end up spending enough time with others to actually form meaningful social bonds. I've also made friends when I've been thrown into an atypical experience with a bunch of other people simultaneously - an incubator in South America, a long boat trip to somewhere remote. But just going about your normal life - eh, it hardly ever happens. Even when you put work into it by inviting people out to do something fun, most adults are busy enough that you just can't see them often enough for a real friendship to develop.

If you find a decent solution, come back and tell me what it is.

If HN is where you spend time because it intersects nicely with your actual interests, this is where you have the best hope of making decent personal connections based on shared interests. The question then becomes "How do I take those relationships to the next level? How do I move it into meatspace or remote collaboration or what have you?" That's a totally different question.

If you aren't participating much, I suggest you up your participation so folks with similar interests can get a clue what your interests are. Put some kind of contact info in your currently blank profile, such as an email address or twitter account or however you prefer to connect with people.

Maybe put your location in your profile as well and start looking at how meetups happen and what you might do to foster more HN connectivity in your own life.

I am not your target demographic, but I think this can apply to people with families as well. When you get to a certain point, you are usually alienated from friends who don't have kids, possibly from the ones who do as well, and so it can be difficult to meet new people and build the types of relationships that lead to serendipitous moments.

I am mid-30s, a relatively new parent, and wondering how to meet new people who maybe have the same set of goals or priorities either in their careers or personal lives. It's not easy.

What are you looking for?

Why don't you just post on your neighborhood Craigslist activities asking for what you are looking for, whether family playdates or other couples with similar interests?

Depends on where you are living. I am in PA right now and it is really, really hard. When I was in Miami I was always meeting new people in startup, tech, martech etc.

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