leontocephaline
kiwifarms.net
- Registrado
- 25 de Nov, 2025
I've never struggled making friends or meeting people back in university, but I went through multiple cycles of my friends graduating and moving away. Now it's happened again. I've moved for a job, and am alone in a new city where I don't speak the local language, though virtually everyone can speak English here. While I seemingly make great impressions on people I meet, I do hold disdain for the common glossy-eyed NPC, so I end up being generally picky about the relationships I invest in and maintain. Back in university the constant exposure through lectures, roommates, house parties, and nights out naturally led to many encounters, and interesting people with some edge to them were easier to spot. Good social circles naturally compounded and grew. And I've been fortunate to have some incredible people as friends, but the move left me at square zero and they are now all scattered far away.
For the last year and a half I'm just in a lonely cycle of working, maintaining fitness, the last vestiges of mental health, doing my little hobbies (which don't involve me leaving the house), and lurking. I'm sociable and adaptable, but I'm afraid this will atrophy and drift if I keep going like this. Men in general are known not to maintain relationships as well as women, romanticizing the grind and the lone journey, but in the long run being alone is not sustainable if you want to get anywhere in life. Women are naturally good at relationships and are perpetually meeting people for the sake of meeting people; men usually need a common goal or activity - playful competition, creating something together, fixing a lawnmower etc. There are many other factors making things difficult - like the disappearing of third spaces, masculinity crisis, the loss of male rites of passage and so on but I leave that for discussion.
I've been called judgmental by an ex on the count of my selectivity with friends; but I see this as a compliment - I keep myself to a high standard and the rest of my life reflects that. That's why I thought after all this time lurking I'd ask here. Some of you are perhaps a bit morose, sullen, but you are critical and most of you don't have shit for brains. Curious to hear your experiences if you've been in a somewhat similar situation to this, and I suspect a lot of you are or might have been.
I want to meet people who don't live on autopilot. I want to be a part of a group who want to better themselves / their environment, are reliable, and reinforce / support this in each-other. People who live purposefully, like to do or create things together, and aren't just passive intravenous drip consumers of life, but most importantly, are aware, critical of, and not afraid to (in private) speak the truth the circus we live in.
The only other social thing I've been doing is dating via apps and it's fucking abysmal. Dates go well, but it takes little time for the can of worms to open. Sometimes I'm surprised that such a cutie can be both single and interested in me. Two months in and I know exactly why she's single, and why in all likelihood forever will be. By now my red flag sonar is so tuned I could sense a shrimp busting a nut on a coral on the other side of the planet in the near future. It's demoralizing. But I know for a fact there's great men and women all around, I just find myself in a situation where I don't have a platform to meet them. All of my best friendships and relationships in the past happened organically. Now the free ride is over. And even if you do meet people in your in your late 20s or 30s you aren't very likely to have the bonding experiences like you do when you're younger - for example being chased down the street by bathrobe-clad machete wielding arabs you pissed off.
I had time to start playing vidya in the last year where I managed to meet some cool people, but of course, not close by. Two years ago this would've been unthinkable to me, but here I am joining the 'male loneliness epidemic'. Signing up for some social meetup bullshit just feels disingenuous. I just don't see going hiking with randos, or cooking classes giving me what I'm looking for, but maybe that's just my pride talking.
What's your situation and where do you find exposure to people that meet your needs?
For the last year and a half I'm just in a lonely cycle of working, maintaining fitness, the last vestiges of mental health, doing my little hobbies (which don't involve me leaving the house), and lurking. I'm sociable and adaptable, but I'm afraid this will atrophy and drift if I keep going like this. Men in general are known not to maintain relationships as well as women, romanticizing the grind and the lone journey, but in the long run being alone is not sustainable if you want to get anywhere in life. Women are naturally good at relationships and are perpetually meeting people for the sake of meeting people; men usually need a common goal or activity - playful competition, creating something together, fixing a lawnmower etc. There are many other factors making things difficult - like the disappearing of third spaces, masculinity crisis, the loss of male rites of passage and so on but I leave that for discussion.
I've been called judgmental by an ex on the count of my selectivity with friends; but I see this as a compliment - I keep myself to a high standard and the rest of my life reflects that. That's why I thought after all this time lurking I'd ask here. Some of you are perhaps a bit morose, sullen, but you are critical and most of you don't have shit for brains. Curious to hear your experiences if you've been in a somewhat similar situation to this, and I suspect a lot of you are or might have been.
I want to meet people who don't live on autopilot. I want to be a part of a group who want to better themselves / their environment, are reliable, and reinforce / support this in each-other. People who live purposefully, like to do or create things together, and aren't just passive intravenous drip consumers of life, but most importantly, are aware, critical of, and not afraid to (in private) speak the truth the circus we live in.
The only other social thing I've been doing is dating via apps and it's fucking abysmal. Dates go well, but it takes little time for the can of worms to open. Sometimes I'm surprised that such a cutie can be both single and interested in me. Two months in and I know exactly why she's single, and why in all likelihood forever will be. By now my red flag sonar is so tuned I could sense a shrimp busting a nut on a coral on the other side of the planet in the near future. It's demoralizing. But I know for a fact there's great men and women all around, I just find myself in a situation where I don't have a platform to meet them. All of my best friendships and relationships in the past happened organically. Now the free ride is over. And even if you do meet people in your in your late 20s or 30s you aren't very likely to have the bonding experiences like you do when you're younger - for example being chased down the street by bathrobe-clad machete wielding arabs you pissed off.
I had time to start playing vidya in the last year where I managed to meet some cool people, but of course, not close by. Two years ago this would've been unthinkable to me, but here I am joining the 'male loneliness epidemic'. Signing up for some social meetup bullshit just feels disingenuous. I just don't see going hiking with randos, or cooking classes giving me what I'm looking for, but maybe that's just my pride talking.
What's your situation and where do you find exposure to people that meet your needs?
