Making New Friends in Unlikely Places

I was recently asked how to make friends as an adult and I have to admit that I don't have many answers. As an adult living abroad in Japan, I recommend getting into hobby groups and meeting other folks with similar interests.

Since I don't have make interests that take me out of my home, I wound up doing that online, specifically on a particular discord server.

How do you make new friends when your interests are obscure? The internet! See also a quilt I'm making for a friend I met on Discord.

For the uninitiated, Discord is a site and app that seems to be really popular for socialization within the gaming community among mostly young men ranging in age from their teens to their thirties, though older folks (like me) and ladies (also like me) as well as other gender identities are present as well, at least on the discord server I have been frequenting for the last year or so.

What started as a few chats here and there with a few people I didn't know any other way has turned into a few very endearing long-term friendships and a bunch of art and fun. There was also some drama in between, as happens with large groups of people , especially young and emotionally charged people.

As someone who just left their 30s, I find it really awkward sometimes to be so generationally different from the people I'm trying to chat with, but it's also a great way to keep the mind young. 

Discord can also be useful for finding people to study Japanese with as there are Japanese discord servers, so instead of the same old conversation with a neighbor or shopkeeper, you could potentially find people with similar interests in the very language you're trying to learn. This could provide much needed incentive for the highly social but studiously unmotivated like me, if I had the courage.

One day.

How do you meet new people?