Looking for a social/creative/active hobby

January 30, 2011 6:43 PM

I'm looking for a creative and/or active, social hobby. Interests and restrictions inside.

I'm looking for a way to be more creative and/or more physically active while also meeting fun, interesting people. Ideally, this hobby would be both creative and active, but I would be psyched with either.

Restrictions:

1. I'm fairly broke, so it can't be one of those hobbies that requires thousands of dollars worth of equipment or other expenses.

2. I have a bad knee that has a habit of giving out when I do a lot of running or twisting, so most group sports are out.

Other than that, I'm pretty open. In the past, I've been involved with theater and local activism, and found that I really liked those cultures and made lots of friends easily. I would totally love to get involved with theater projects again, but in a large city, it seems like you really need to be A Theater Person with a lot of talent to do that, and really, I just liked putting on silly little plays with fun, weird people. Activism is now my career, so that's out as a hobby. Other less-social hobbies/activities I've enjoyed over the years that I've enjoyed were pottery, writing and yoga.

posted by lunasol to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (10 answers total)

You don't say where you are other than a "big city." As someone running a community theater in a metro area with 5 million or so people, trust me, theater is always looking for people. If you want to come back and say where you are, that might help people respond more constructively. (Like, Oh, you're in LA? I do XYZ in LA and you should come do it with me!, etc.)
posted by Medieval Maven at 6:54 PM on January 30, 2011

Dancing, maybe? A lot of big cities have cheap/free classes or groups for salsa, ballroom dancing, etc. You might also look at some of the outlying-suburban-area community theaters, since they tend to be smaller and more amenable to folks who are more into theater as a hobby.
posted by kagredon at 6:55 PM on January 30, 2011

Response by poster: Medieval Maven - thanks for pointing that out. I'm in Seattle. I'd rather not go too far afield - I'm looking to meet people near where I live.
posted by lunasol at 7:01 PM on January 30, 2011

Here are some ideas:

• Cascade Cycling Club. (Assuming that you already have a bike or you can get one for less than "thousands.")
• Mountaineers (and their young person group) for hiking trips.
• There are various volunteer activities that involve being active, like trailblazing or park cleaning.
• There might be something on meetup.com that fits the bill.
• Dancing is a great idea. I have friends who do ballroom, salsa, swing, and folk.
• The Fremont Arts Council does a lot of cool creative stuff (especially the solstice parade)
• Underdog Sports has some sports (bowling and mini golf) that don't require running, but I'm told are a great way to meet people. (Whether these fit the bill for "active," though, is for you to decide)

posted by grouse at 7:58 PM on January 30, 2011

You might try meetup.com. I've been involved with some fun groups through them, you indicate your interest as narrowly or broadly as you like. You can search for existing groups and people forming groups can also contact you when your interest matches the group they're setting up. You can ignore the invites of groups/activities/locations that don't interest. For example, I said I liked foreign language, French, women's groups, books, hiking, dance, blah blah blah. When I got an meetup email from a woman doing French cooking; that sounded great. Napa knitters and German mothers club, not so much. When I was in Texas I found my mah jongg group thru them.
posted by shoesietart at 8:22 PM on January 30, 2011

that don't interest you. I meant to say.
posted by shoesietart at 8:24 PM on January 30, 2011

I know a few people that juggle, and it seems that jugglers readily make friends with each other. That's active and social while not something that will put your knee at risk.
posted by ignignokt at 10:36 PM on January 30, 2011

Here is a list of Seattle Community Theaters. I'm sure there are more, but if you want to find a theater home, this seems like a good place to start.

Good luck! A friend of mine here in Atlanta (who is also very active in theater) also does Swing Dancing and she's met a zillion awesome people. So I recommend that by proxy. :)
posted by Medieval Maven at 5:28 AM on January 31, 2011

Seconding community theater - also check out poetry slams. It's poetry that moves.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:33 AM on January 31, 2011

Improv is another idea.
posted by grouse at 8:04 AM on January 31, 2011