Ask HN: Where to Find Interesting People? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Where to Find Interesting People?

17 pointstopsycatt26 comments

Where do you go to meet interesting people to talk to? I find it's difficult to find the right mixture of:

a) A setting where it's acceptable to strike up a conversation with a stranger

b) A place not already geared towards a different purpose (i.e. a bar for hookups)

c) Filled with -- for lack of a better phrase -- people who are uninteresting to talk to. By that I mean people who aren't looking to chat, all conform to a very rote / traditional lifestyle, or generally aren't great conversationalists.

View on HN

Make yourself interesting, so people want to meet you. It’s not a function of place or setting — you can start a conversation almost anywhere. It helps not to start from assumptions and judgments about how other people might “conform to a very rote/traditional lifestyle,” whatever that means, or about how great a conversationalist a stranger might be. The implication is that you consider yourself interesting, non-traditional and free from rote conformity, and a great conversationalist, which may come across to strangers as aloof, self-centered, and dismissive.

Common politeness generally means avoiding personal or possibly controversial topics with strangers, so you might have to invest the time to get to know someone.

No, I actually do conform to a rote/traditional lifestyle fairly closely. I'm actively trying to branch out with some success, but I'm also looking to talk to people who are unlike myself to get outside perspective, ideas for growth, and just to have a fun discussion!

I like to think I don't come across as aloof, self-centered, and dismissive, but -- like I mentioned in another comment -- who really knows what another thinks of them? Perhaps that's a good area to validate my assumptions so that I'm not shooting myself in the foot.

And on your last point, I definitely agree. Sometimes however you can find yourself in a situation where those barriers don't really apply and you can have a deep, interesting conversation with little prompting. I guess the heart of my question is about where people find those interesting conversations with greater regularity.

For me the most interesting connections have happened in the least-expected ways, which means I can’t give a good answer.

Many years ago I suffered from painful shyness. A friend who did not have that problem told me to try acting “not shy.” He suggested I go out of my way to talk to at least one stranger every day, even if just to ask a question that might start a conversation. “What’s the best coffee (food, drink, etc.) here?” At a bar I will ask the bartender to give me a shot of her favorite whiskey or tequila, then ask why that’s her favorite. That kind of thing. I have started some good conversations and met some great people that way. And over time the shyness receded as well.

In general people love to talk, and many people feel lonely and want to connect, so they welcome someone who makes the first move as long as it’s not creepy or intrusive. You have to read the situation of course, but a smile and sincere question or comment can work most of the time.

Define interesting.

If by interesting you mean people who enjoy the same topics of conversation as you do then pick a topic.

Figure out what people interested in that topic do, where do they go.

Go there.

Defining interesting is an exercise that's left up to the reader ;)

I personally think it's fascinating to talk to people who are unlike myself, but your approach is definitely valid (if a bit "draw the rest of the f**ing owl") for a given interest.

Everything you go to will be filled with people who are uninteresting to somebody, the best way to get around it is to choose something that will have a range of types. That will be able to provide a variation among people and have that variation of types be somewhat random.

take a class in some subject that is somewhat outside your comfort zone, so if you're a programmer don't take a programming class. I would recommend an art, music, or literature class. Downside, lots of uninteresting people really into those subjects can also be pretentiously annoying.

Other classes one can take that will also be healthy for you: Dance, cooking (maybe of some type that is not that well known or trendy will improve chances), Capoeira - has a generally gregarious culture and tends to have people who are not as much into the general martial arts stuff as others - especially Capoeira Angola.

However all these things probably betray my particular interests and where I might expect to find people I consider 'interesting', it's a pretty subjective quality.

Great suggestions, thank you!

Maybe most of your interactions with strangers are commercial interactions. So, invert that: become the 'host' for something related to your interests, that is free.

Interesting. Can you elaborate on "become the 'host'"? Maybe a concrete example would help me understand what you mean

Start a meetup, a book club, trivia night, fishing club, hiking group, Saturday morning reverse engineering coffee chats, etc. Basically the mantra “build it and they will come”

Gotcha, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks!

What are you trying to get out of these interactions, is it new friends and romantic partners or literally just the novelty of meeting a stranger?

Do you think at this point people might be sensing that you're bracing for boredom as you're talking to them? I don't mean to blame you but vibes are powerful and real and it takes a lot of effort to truly conceal our emotions and assumptions

Both are fair questions. For the former, I'm personally looking for new friends and the novelty of meeting strangers. Some of my favorite memories are from meeting strangers and getting to know them over the course of an evening.

For the latter, I like to think not (but who really knows someone else's experience of themselves?). I enjoy talking to strangers for it's own sake and I'm not generally bracing for boredom, my question was primarily about good places to explore that have a higher ratio of interesting interactions to non-interesting interactions.

I understand the classification is very subjective, so I left the question somewhat subjective to hear not only answers to the core question, but also answers to the implicit question of "what do you find to be interesting".

They said "Great minds think alike" or "Birds of a feather flock together", my idea is to first make yourself a very interesting person. ;)

And don't forget to make yourself comfortable to banter and have small talks, sometimes people complain about how hard it is to make new friends, meanwhile they are super shy, not sure how they can find one tbh :(

I'm working on it, but part of the motivation for the question is wanting to find people to get ideas / guidance / friendship from who are more interesting than myself.

Kind of an “If you're the most interesting person in the room, you're in the wrong room.” vibe.

Ah, in this case you can find your friends in the places you like. For example you like an outdoor setting, then you should go to the park. The same applies when you come to the reading book club if you're a bookworm (like me) :">

You should be clarify your interesting people. If interesting people is the one who have the same hobby, passion so go on to the community or the offline event so you can find them

I think it'd will be more excited to meet random people and find out that they're interesting than you try to find them at a specific place.

Intro classes to things you’re interested in. A once a week for four-six weeks course will get you enough exposure to become friends with at least one cool person in the class.

Volunteering in the community you live brings a wide array of people and there’s usually downtime for talking.

Well, for people interesting to you, hang out at places you want or need to go, and simply attempt extending polite greetings a bit with a question or compliment. If you want to talk to objectively interesting people, well, they tend to be quite disagreeable.

Purely anecdotal, yet have worked for me:

-Hobby clubs. (We all have the hobby in common)

-Work conferences. (I work in tech so tech is always interesting.)

-Friend groups/activities.

Small hotel bars.

Well, you have come to the right place :)

hands down :"> woohoo

Hacker News.

jail

Or rehab :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com