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Comment by forvelin | Hacker News Reader

This seems like some sort of a epidemic, the internet infecting the way of relationship development we had for decades.

Now we know where to get jobs -job boards-, where to get relationships -tinderlike apps and bars- but we have no idea for where to find people who we click with.

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How do you think people used to make friends? I'll give you a clue. Work, school, university, clubs for particular interest groups (hiking, pottery, computers, flower arranging, making beer etc.)

All of which still exist and if nothing else is easier to discover these days than in the past.

Meetup.com, for all its follies, is still a great place to meet lots of people with common interests.

Absolutely this. It's been a pretty consistently useful tool over the past 10 plus years since I've been using it in various locations to get involved with cycling, tech meetups, hiking, drinking beer. One of the most useful websites out there to get away from staring at a screen!

Personally I feel like many millenials (of which I am also one) just have too many distractions we can indulge in at home by ourselves now (internet, social media, youtube, netflix, video games), so there is no boredom to quench to force yourself out of your house to do stuff. For me, turning off autoplay on youtube and netflix, selling my video games, cancelling cable TV, quitting Facebook and Reddit have all had a net positive impact on my life. Of course there are still people in my generation who do go out and do stuff and you can be one of them too if you choose to be.

I'll second that. Cut out the mildly boredom quenching pastimes (like Netflix) and cut out the pseudo-interaction pastimes (like Facebook), and what's left are the higher value things you already wish you did more of. You'll find yourself getting a little more bored without Netflix and a little more in need of socializing without Facebook, which makes gets you over the mental threshold to doing those high value activities naturally.

I don't disagree, but I also think this isn't merely a generational thing. I've long noticed my parent's generation slowly melting in front of TVs, flipping between boring show after boring show, hardly spending time doing other things or forming friendships. Millennials are really just like their parents, but for them the TV remote became their mobile phones.

Law of the internet says any app that is geared towards friendship will be used for dating or sex, regardless of its marketing or advertising. Even sites/apps like Interpals or HelloTalk, which are 100% focused on language exchange, struggle with this all the time.

Outside of work/school, most people find friends in their hobbies such as gym, improv, board game, etc. Any activity that has people doing stuff together could work. You find them IRL or online.

Bumble BFF was that for me. Sometimes the answer is another app.

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