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In my experience, and everyone's is different, the key is to find a common activity/interest. I do consulting work, so I often change teams and walk in knowing no one. I've been complimented multiple times about noticeably increasing team cohesion. You know what I do? I start regular/consistent activities with the team. "Tuesday is my go out to lunch day, everyone is invited." I mean I literally just stand up in the middle of work and say that loud enough for surrounding people to hear. Sometimes I go alone, especially at first. But eventually people trickle in and then it doesn't take long before a group of 4-5 people are going to lunch every Tuesday. You can similarly start a regular happy hour if one is not already going on. People join who aren't even on my team, because they heard me invite everyone.

Outside of work, the path is to join a hobby. Find a softball league or something like that. This has built in consistent interaction and fosters expansion into happy hours after the games or other activities.

If there's anyone in your circle of acquaintances that has a birthday, tell them you'd really like to buy them a beer to celebrate their birthday. Ask open ended, "Hey, is there a day this week you're free? I owe you a birthday beer." Most adults no longer get real celebrations for their birthdays and will appreciate it if there's not some other social hurdle (actually busy, afraid you are trying to date them, etc). Some of those social hurdles (like afraid it's a date) can be overcome by suggesting it's a group thing. To use the work example again, "Hey team, it's Susan's birthday this week. I think it would be cool if we took her to lunch or something. Anyone else in?"

To put context on this, I am introverted and autistic (very low social needs). I do these behaviors explicitly for outcome oriented purposes (bring people joy, grow career).

In my experience both of you are right. There are many people who are very "desperate" for friendships, especially if they have not lived in the same place for 20+ years. On the other hand there are a bunch of people who are so much in their routines they are not open to do anything out of the ordinary. The ironic thing is that even those are often desperate for friends, they just struggle to break their routines (something you definitely must do to make friends IMO).

Which leads me to a point that is missing in the post, if you want to get to know new people, be open to new things. Just say yes if somebody asks you to go to the arcade, if you really can't but want to do something, follow up on the rain check.

>There are many people who are very "desperate" for friendships

Being desperate for friendships, in my experience, usually has the opposite effect of making people avoid you even more. Especially if you're over 30. People seem to be wired to think that "if you're a grown adult and have no friends by now, then it's probably because there's something wrong with you, and is risky for me to be the first one to take a leap of faith in you if nobody has done it so far". Usually people who already have many friends easily attract more, as it signals you're already a sociable and valuable "tribe member". Same with romantic relationships.

>Just say yes if somebody asks you to go to the arcade

That assumes there are people who ask you. If nobody asks you, then what? In my experience after I moved abroad, almost nobody asked me anywhere despite me learning the local language, making efforts to socialize, strike up conversations and exchange phone numbers. Even when I was the one initiating asking people to go places rarely end in a positive response. I think it's a cultural thing. The country I live now, people are very cold, distanced and keep to themselves, and meeting and engaging people you don't know very well is not really something wildly accepted.

Perhaps you can consider moving to a country other than the UK?

Just kidding, I've met plenty of wonderful and sociable UK people, and the joke could work (or not work, depending on what you make of my lousy humour) on almost any country.

Edit: seeing your other comment about "German speaking parts of Europe", my next guess to use in a joke would be Germany, but similarly, I've met a ton of very sociable Germans.

new relationships = low commitment

never ask a new friend to hang in X, where X is days away.

instead just do, i'm heading to this arcade want to join?

or i'm at coffee shop now, want to stop by and catch up.

this is how you can turn casual associates into friends.

if someone cool i knew asked me to spend 2 hours with them i'd get nervous.

plus, if they know that you are cool even without them they are far more likely to join you.

>or i'm at coffee shop now, want to stop by and catch up. this is how you can turn casual associates into friends.

This is not my experience at all in my new host country. I tried this a lot and never got anyone to join. People here seem to have their schedule pre-planned, and expect you to schedule meetups in advance if you want them to join you. Sending texts like "I'm having a coffee in town, join me if you want" to people I just met always left me alone, with replies coming after 2+ hours or the next day like "sorry, I was busy/got other plans/saw your text too late".

It's how I spent my 30th birthday alone. I texted a bunch of people 10h in advance if they want join me later that Friday/Saturday night for birthday drinks and maybe going out dancing later. Out of about 12 people, nobody came. :(

It's a cultural issue I think in the German speaking part of Europe. Brazilians told me spontaneous meetings with people are completely normal there, but here people don't spontaneously join invites from people they aren't very close with and expect you to schedule these well in advance.

I've heard the same about Nordic countries, and to be perfectly honest, it would be similar in many North American cities as well.

As a Brazilian living in a Nordic country and working in a different Nordic country, I can corroborate that the expectation from the locals here is that everything in planned in advance (with plenty of notice: 1 week or more); I can also corroborate that Brazilians in general do things spontaneously.

10 hours in advance is not enough time for the weekends, people plan there weekends days in advance and sometimes weeks. A weekday is a lot easier

Bingo