I am not joking when I say that I thinked for hours about how do people find each other in 2025.
Currently, the world is in very weird state. People online are either using social video platforms or they are reading news or lurking in online forums in it’s different shapes and forms.
Most chat platforms that I know had shut down and most alt social platforms are almost dead. Even Hackernews had started to see a lower amount of comments compared to previous years.
I want a serious answer, how should I find people online to talk to about anything really other than politics?
I met someone on Reddit about 5 years ago whilst talking about making a smart mirror for fun. Ended up not making the mirror but did end up in a relationship from it. Was random, I had never exchanged dm’s with anyone before that.
For me WebFishing. Some time ago I played VRchat.
Discord is also good but lack of 3d avatars just doesn’t provide the feeling of socialisation.
Look into your communities events pages or whatever it’ll be called and look for things that might be your interest adjacent. Go to community centers and look at their boards. Find a thing you’re vaguely interested in ago go. Then meet people there who can either tell you about other things that you might be interested in or continue what you’re doing. Churches often have good community boards too, depends on the church. Some are far less evangelical than others, your results may vary.
Try bellawhiskey.ca/trollegle. It’s a silly little chat site. Will not necessarily be alive when you join, but there are a few regular visitors. I would recommend to avoid speaking to _ though.
It’s pleasantly surprising to see it getting mentioned it at all. Loved the servers when they were Omegle chatoorms, and it’s a bit sad to see it sort of die out with the death of Omegle. But yeah, the people there are generally nice.
Also, since I mentioned Omegle: I do not recommend any Omegle clones, as they often have an account system in place, which sort of ruins the whole anonymity stuff and also leaves to some stigma to those who do not want to use the account system. Not to mention that these sites generally attracts horny creeps, and finding a good chat partner is thusly hard.
Hey people have dated and married over gaming chats before. I knew someone in college he met his then about to engage fiance. I lost contact after graduation though
I meet tons of people on Discord.
Love yourself and be content in being alone, get to know the real you. When you do that, you will find the right people. It will be instinctual.
No offense, but “be content in being alone” is not a good answer to “how do I meet new people for a chill time”
None taken. I’m advocating for introspection, as in, why did they come here and ask the question in the first place? Why not just seek out a like-minded community? So, how can one possibly get directions from another when they don’t know where they want to go? At that point, any direction is valid.
Fair point.
Maybe I feel like this because I’ve been in the same situation before, where it felt like I had exhausted all social options in my comfort zone. Asking random strangers is nice sometimes, because it gives you perspective and feedback from people who are out of your own bubble. Or, at least, a way to vent your frustration without risking to alienate your friends.
Or you’ll just be alone with your cats forever because you no longer leave the house, but like it’s cool because you’re fine being alone.
Would still be neat to find a partner, though, but the likelihood she shows up at my house is pretty slim. Maybe I should order more doordash…
I never leave the house and people are constantly messaging me online and trying to be friends in a lot of cases.
The hack is to be useful to people. Then you’ll have friends even if you don’t leave the house.
That seems quite dependent on the online environments and kind of useful then. Or is missing some other context.
I don’t receive any direct messages even when quite connected or in communities and even when being useful or potentially useful and continuously contributing foss.
When you find yourself, it won’t be in your house. That’s hiding from yourself.
In what way is that hiding from yourself?
From a metaphysical point of view, you and the rest of existence are reflections of each other, thus, the rest of the existence is not separate from you and is a part of yourself, for without it, you would not be who you are now, nor would it be what it is without you.
Knowing this, we can look at Plato’s allegory of the cave. Staying inside restricts you to a limited view of yourself, and an online one is even more limiting because it reflects a distorted truth from others suffering the same fate. How can you possibly know who you are from such a limited scope?
Temet nosce. It means “know thyself”. You should do everything in your power, to the very best of your ability, to see this through. Otherwise, you’re still in the cave.
Seriously though the only places I’ve seen any kind of thriving community are invite-only private torrent tracker sites.
I have an IRL friend who always goes like "oh, sorry, its invite-only torrent (￣y▽,￣)╭ "
That’s lame, you’re only supposed to be inviting people you really know IRL anyway… Weak excuse from your friend, if you’re willing to seed.
Whatever you do, steer clear of meetup.com - all of their social activities on there now are scientologists thinly veiling their seminars as get-togethers.
I’ve gone to local meetups that were cool, but it seems like most of the events on there now cost money, and are hosted by some life coach or guru.
How does that even work lol
“What do you guys wanna do? Actually I know, let’s check out this building” “no you should really check out this building” “get in the fucking building”
“Guys I wanna leave”
“Okay but $50 and we will call your phone for eternity”
Here’s an example one: https://www.meetup.com/101-dating-relationships/events/307612236/
That’s not true everywhere, my city has a pretty good meetup scene for various hobbies. However the amount of people who sell their useless courses as “meetup, but I will ask for a 20€ fee from everyone” or shady “we will talk about investing/crypto…” groups has gone up.
Videogames.
I want a serious answer, how should I find people online to talk to about anything really other than politics?
You don’t.
You don’t find people online (or IRL) waiting for strangers to start a discussion on some random topic you feel like talking about. Because people, unlike trolls, are busy with their live.
What you can find is people willing to discuss with someone they find interesting or, with any luck, intriguing on whatever topic you both are interested in.
So, what are you interested in? Have you any hobbies, interests, passions? Find small communities around those topics you’re interested in, and start posting. Do the work to show you’re there and that, maybe, you’re worth discussing with.
I don’t have an answer about online methods… I went through the phase of how to meet people as well, and eventually decided to join / try out some group activities. I did some rookie dragon boating, table tennis, stand up paddle, and eventually met my forever spouse as she taught me scuba diving. PS: other than the scuba diving, those were all free activities for beginners. Good luck
Meeting people is much possible in the real world.
Is it? Fucking where? And how? Because all the people I know I’ve met through dating apps up, online forums, or knew them from school or uni. I have plenty of hobbies, but there aren’t any even vaguely related groups for them, and if they are, they aren’t very discoverable.
How do you not meet people? Even if you’re stuck in front of a computer all day you can go out to a pub or something at the weekend. Put yourself in a social environment and be friendly. It sounds like you even have experience of that from school and uni.
I’m in the US with no car (and not in a city), and don’t drink. No idea on anything that could even be mistaken for a social environment, especially when it requires money.
I mean yeah I’m also not wired for that, so add in other issues/oddities and that’s just how it is I guess.
What do other people in your area do?
From what I see from family, it probably involves drinking or travel/expenses beyond me (also, with their existing connections). Though these days if it’s not work or shopping they probably are staying home more often than not.
I ride my bike on a multi-use trail, but given the sparse area not good odds to meet anyone due to multiple reasons.
People at the pub don’t talk to strangers, bruh, pls tell me your so-called “advice” isn’t to literally just harass random stranger groups just having a day out at the pub. As an extraverted person please don’t do that, that’s gonna get the cops called on ye sooner or later, most of us are just being polite.
At school you are in forced social situations where you have to bond to “survive” (ask for advice/help to pass classes), less at uni, but it still helps. That’s why the friends I have from there I’m honestly relatively distant with because we don’t actually have much in common except past shared experience.
I do meet people plenty, all initially online though, not IRL. Dating apps have been where I met most of my friends.
Play on small game servers at the same time every day. Eventually youll start seeing the regulars and then its just a matter or trying to break into the friend group.
Outside of that you could try discord but its like wading through a sea of shit. If youre over 25 it will be very hard to find a group that doesnt eventually end up filled with kids or everyone has gotten on with their lives.
I posted on lemmy if anyone wanted to play games with me. Someone answered and we talk everyday since then, on most days we spend hours on video calls. Just try posting on whatever you use, you might find people you like.
