Young men now spend more of their free time alone than any other group

I love programming too, and used to go to meetups before covid, but I think the music crowd for me has been easier to turn into a social thing.

https://www.luv.asn.au/ https://mlug-au.org/ https://linux.org.au/lugs/

The Linux Australia conference (happening right now, in Adelaide this year) will often have local folks at it:

https://linux.org.au/ https://everythingopen.au/

For me I joined a silly learn-self-defence club when I first moved to the big city and I can't now remember any moves but I have fond memories of some of the people.

There are no promises of budding or lasting friendships forming, but its always worth a shot and you might actually find something that sticks.

I also found some hiking and cycling groups. Lots of time to socialize while you're walking or cycling.

You might say you have no interest in these, to which my response is: stop complaining and damn well develop an interest! Your body needs to be taken care of, and if you ignore that you might get through your 20s and 30s, but past that you're gonna start having serious health issues. So you can both improve your future and develop a social life.

Rather than just finding people in your narrow interest groups - Linux, coding, whatever - you'll meet people from all different walks of life. Some hyper focused on exercise, but mostly just normal people with a healthy outlook on taking care of their bodies.

But what kind of art? There are some great slam poetry events. What about interpretive dance? What about tea ceremonies? What about abstract monotone painting done with watercolors? What about painting Warhammer miniatures?

It's a massive field. So is programming. It's possible to meet with a person who also loves programming, but if you like working on networking backends and the other person really just loves writing shaders, programming alone is hard to find a common ground. It's like a person who loves slam poetry talking about their hobby with someone who's only interested in Warhammer. When they find a common topic to talk about, it'll probably be anything but slam poetry and Warhammer. It'll be a different hobby, like surfing or making homebrew beers.

What I'm saying is, expand your interests. Try some things you've never even imagined being interested in before. You'll be surprised what you enjoy.

I would never expect them to discuss alsa or systemd, and that is a blessing IMO. Gives me space to think about other things.

My best advice is to find some other activity that you love doing and start from there.

i can feel your plight. i too struggle to connect with people if they don't share my interests. but i learned to try to approach finding friends like finding a partner. i know that it is very unlikely that i'll find a partner that shares my interests, so i have to branch out and look for other things that may be interesting too.

you already looked into video games and DnD. but keep looking.

one thing that is important is to not give up to quickly. you will not connect to everyone right away.

what was wrong with the board game club, for example? the wrong people? the wrong games? try going there a few times, see if the games and the people change. but most importantly, be patient and stick through the awkwardness of joining a group where everyone already knows each other and you are meeting them for the first time.

re video games and DnD, you may be tired of it, but if you are new to a city, it may be the way to get to know some people and learn about other activities of interest. move around, try different things. sometimes it is serendipity. i visited a friend in one city, but then i became friends with the landlord that i rented from, and a whole new world opened up that my initial friend wasn't connected to at all. keep your eyes open.

Are there (natural) languages you'd be interested in learning?

Are there sports that you enjoy? I know of a group in my city (Washington, DC) that meets for Saturday morning runs, and based on the couple of times I've seen them, I'd say that there is a pretty broad range of speed and endurance among them. A local running goods company has "social runs" (at what I consider more social hours) starting from its locations. I'd be surprised to hear that Melbourne does have something comparable. And there are softball leagues and kickball leagues.

If you're young enough to pull it off (20's) I'd recommend local college clubs. Your audience will be a bit (or much) younger, but you will meet likeminded people to talk with. including whatever professor is hosting and supervising the group. They usually aren't too fussed about you being a non-student as long as you're participating in the activities.

the result was that in every city i went to i got a few people to hang out for an evening and in some locations i gave a talk. i remember in at least one location i was told that my visit motivated the online group to get together physically again, which they hadn't done for some time.

so maybe you can look for the online groups, get active in those and then offer yourself to host a meeting or two. scout locations, but keep it simple, to the extent that you are comfortable with. making a reservation at some restaurant may be all it takes to get started.

in beijing we had an active group but at one point we didn't have a suitable location, so we made an activity out of it. a few of the more motivated people would meet weekly in a different area of the city and actually walk the street to scout for a location. when we found a place we'd go in and test it, and if it was ok, we would hold the next meeting there.

the important part is that because the goal was to test locations, there was no expectations that i as a host had to find and check the location before hand, nor that the locations we tested would be good.

another thing was that the people who came with me to scout for locations were the ones who cared most about the group. and they were the ones who took over leading the group after i left. the group is still going. survived through covid.

in other words, if there is no offline meeting yet (or not anymore), maybe you can try starting one.

I have been looking ahead and wondering about this however. Thx for sharing.

Whether that claim is (a) true and (b) significant, that’s a different question. However it seems that you and I are living in different bubbles because when your gut reaction is to feel the headline claim is false and/or meaningless, my immediate reaction is that it corresponds with ideas I’ve frequently encountered recently, that young men are finding it increasingly hard to form meaningful friendships and that some of the outcomes from that are an increased rate of depression, suicidal tendencies, violence towards each other and towards women, and a greater likelihood of being radicalised by extremist political groups of any flavour.

I don’t know whether my worldview or yours is more correct, the truth is perhaps somewhere in the middle, all I know is that if there is a possibility that any of this is both true and significant then it takes calm and nuanced discussion backed up by well researched facts and a willingness to try potential interventions as a society - unless of course research and not just gut instinct tells us: no, this really isn’t a problem, we do live in a fair and just society and nobody is suffering.

It's movies, books, hobbies, plays, etc.

Yes, even the good ones, even your David Lynch or your copy of Critique of Pure Reason

It isn't, as some people imagine, pure dopamine machines shovelling out easy to consume content, but even also access to (made possible by both far increased literacy and far increase education) works that entertain us that are imagined as higher. We simply can't get bored

But yes I agree. We are victims of convinience. a soft form of the classic VR immersion dystopia. All the joy in our fingertips, so who needs friends?

Maybe it's something simple, like: the mind craves words - and expressions made thereof - and social media gives just enough of a fix that the restless mind is not driven to seek out conversations & encounters in the flesh. Shyness becomes self-reinforcing. Awkward wins.

That may be the unique issue. Maybe a good portion of people never realize the problem and sustain on artificial intimacy. The internet is really good at giving people the facade of such interactions.

> Yoga and Pilates classes aren’t known for their social atmosphere and if you join in on a cardio dance class - your sexuality and masculinity will inherently be questioned.

If you're really interested in joining those, just do it. Who cares what people think? If someone thinks less of you because your hobby isn't manly, that's their problem.