Me, 3.0

September 10, 2011 4:09 PM

Need new friends in Silicon Valley after a long drought. Where to begin? What works? How do I reboot my life?

After nearly 9 years, I find myself single (worse = separated/tracking towards divorce). To say that I haven't been on the market in a long time would be putting it mildly. And, even before then, I wasn't exactly a social butterfly being that I am INTJ.

Worse yet, all of my friends who are my age (let's say mid-30's) are all married w/children. Ugh.

I'm not looking to date right away (would anyone even want me? I'm separated) - but I would like to meet more/new people. And get on the road to dating eventually. Some key challenges:

1. I work in Man Jose... er... San Jose. This isn't exactly the social / hotspot capital of the world.

2. I don't know the rules. What do you do if you meet someone cute and by themselves browsing around at a store? Or sitting alone at starbucks? What's the approach?

3. Where/How do I meet younger (late 20's) people?

4. What else should I do to "reboot my life"?

posted by veryblue1 to Human Relations (10 answers total)

Have you considered volunteering? Something like serving at a homeless kitchen, sorting cans at a food bank, helping build houses for Habitat for Humanity: no prior experience needed for any of them, just a willingness to work. It'd give you somethng to do outside of yourself, and it's actually a pretty low-key no-pressure way to meet people.
posted by easily confused at 4:18 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I find the best way to meet people is from my hobbies. Just today I sat in with an orchestra, not only did I enjoy my time enjoying my hobby with people, but I also got to chat with people (OMG, is that a selmer!?).

Hobbies, via meetup or otherwise is my suggestion.
posted by TrinsicWS at 4:18 PM on September 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Meetup.com, taking a class -- there are more adults in the evening classes. I have a couple friends that I met in an evening language class at Mission College in Santa Clara. (It helps if you move things to an out-of-class study group first, of course.)
posted by wintersweet at 5:30 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think, unless you just hang out with your coworkers all the time, it's more difficult for everyone to meet other people around y/our age. It feels weird because it is weird. But luckily, because it's also pretty common, once you get your feet wet and figure where to find people to meet in the first place, a lot of them will likely be interested in getting to know you.

I can't speak to dating, but as for general friend-making, it's always easier to talk to people if you have a shared activity or interest, which is why classes and volunteering are so helpful. Wine groups, book groups, outdoorsy stuff... ya know, whatever you enjoy or are curious about. I think it's easier to be your most fun, most attractive self if you're already having a good time.

Also, although we're more active in SF and the East Bay than down SJ way, the local Mefite posse is pretty great. It's a cool (if perhaps a bit odd and boozy), quite diverse group. Come to a meetup sometime, for social practice, if nothing else.
posted by mostlymartha at 6:38 PM on September 10, 2011

Best answer: I don't know the rules. What do you do if you meet someone cute and by themselves browsing around at a store? Or sitting alone at starbucks? What's the approach?

I suggested a rule of thumb a while ago that seemed to work for some people.

The other thing about chatting up women at Starbucks or whatever is that it very rarely leads to, like, marriage and babies. If you define success as "...and then we got naked together" or even "...and then we exchanged phone numbers," it's gonna feel like you've got a depressingly low success rate.

So you have to approach it more like "Look, I just feel like having a quick low-pressure chat with someone interesting — and if I have a couple conversations like this every week, I'll feel more connected and less lonely." And then any conversation that's mutually enjoyable can count as a success, even if it just lasts two minutes. If one of those two-minute conversations stretches out into two hours and eventually leads to telecommunications and nudity and so on, that's just an unexpected bonus.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:28 PM on September 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Palo Alto meetup soon. You should come.
posted by jeffamaphone at 7:31 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Instead of chatting up women at coffee shops, why not take first things first, and build up a social circle that's more in keeping with your (currently) single and childless status.

You can do this by volunteering or joining a club that matches your interests (just be sure that there will be people there that you will want to date).

This has a number of advantages: first of all, you're doing something fun that aligns with your sense of self, which is "recreation" in the truest sense of the word. Second, you'll get to socialize more regularly, which is good for your self-esteem, and also helps you relearn how to do it. Next, you'll be able to interact with a wide range of women, so there will be less pressure on you to hit the bulls-eye. You can actually "date" women.
posted by KokuRyu at 7:41 PM on September 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Help out with a local theatre group. Even just going to a work day and helping paint a set or something. It'll introduce you to a bunch of new folks, some of whom are likely to be gregarious and social and some of whom are probably nerdily socially inept, and it's often a good group of people.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:39 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Where how do I meet younger late twenties people? Try this. 90% single, 65% women. Free and you'll do something that will make your community better and you feel better.
posted by bananafish at 10:41 PM on September 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I recently found myself living by myself in Seattle. I, too, am pretty damn intj. I'm mostly an artist, a profession that can leave one pretty monastic.

I've got some friends here who are artists; we hang out now and then and draw. One of 'em works at a casual game company that you've probably heard of and mentioned that there are regular "hang out and draw" nights over there that're pretty open to friends of employees dropping in. My career is also taking me out of the house for this; I'll be doing panels at a con this weekend, and the next one as well.

I've also been meeting an entirely new crowd of people: I started taking burlesque dance classes. The social thing is really a bonus; I just thought it would be fun to try. The fact that pretty much everybody I meet through this is totally hot is a definite plus. I went from casual drop-in classes to a pretty intensive six-week class and definitely made some new friends with the other people who were going through that grueling process; we'd get together to critique each others' evolving routines, and have maintained contact after the class finished.

So: Go to gatherings of people who do what you already do. Assuming you're a coder/engineer type (I'm guessing from the "works in Silicon Valley"), go check out some hacker spaces or some user groups for whatever technologies you know well.

And go to gatherings of people who want to learn to do something you want to learn. Get a new hobby that will force you to leave the house and your computer. I can't tell you what it should be. Whatever crazy physical thing you want to do. Dance, theatre, flying, rock climbing... Some new skill.

Also if you're living in the burbs, move somewhere walkable, with fun places to go such as cafés. Get out and be willing to be chatty now and then, and as said above, accept that 90% of those random coffeehouse chats will go absolutely nowhere.
posted by egypturnash at 6:58 PM on September 11, 2011 [1 favorite]