How Do You Meet New People?

[IggyWH]

I just moved to San Diego this week from Pittsburgh, where I've lived all my life until now. I don't know anyone in SD at all and never really been in a situation where I'm completely on my own for meeting people.

Anyone care to offer any suggestions or help on how to go about doing it?

I understand it's quite complex and not a simple answer to such a basic question. In my opinion, I have a great personality. I'm sure I rub some people here on 2p2 the wrong way at times, but it's because I'm a very sarcastic person and that doesn't come across well on a message board. When I'm full blown myself, people love to be around me as I'm the life of any conversation and can make anyone laugh at one of my many stupid stories. My main problem though is opening up to people to be that 100% me all the time. When I meet new people, sometimes it's too much for them to handle, so I've grown into being shy around people I don't know.

Here's a couple ways I've come across so far as to meeting new people :

1)I got my roomie who is my age and has been here for a couple years, so he has a core group of friends. I'll try leeching off him a little, but I really don't want to be that annoying roommate guy.

2)My friends who have cold moved to other cities found success in kickball leagues. I'm thinking of doing the same and maybe joining some other sports like baseball/softball.

3)Let's just get this out of the way now, yes I am lame. In my lameness, I made a post on Craigslist looking for someone to hang out with. I got a couple "weird" responses such as a couple with the guy who is bi and them looking for someone to have a threesome and two "not gay" guys who offered me some discrete dome.

I then got a message from a girl. We exchanged a couple of emails and she seemed real cool. I was a little worried when she sent me her myspace though and she was hot. I figured if a hot girl is replying to my ad on CL, she must have some serious issues. I usually get along with women best since I'm not the "let's go get laid tonight" type of guy and love having women friends. I am the what seems to be a rare breed of guys who has women friends because I like having women as friends, and not having a woman "I just want to screw and hoping desperately in a moment of weakness she'll want to bang me" friend.

I'm pretty freaked out about meeting people off the internet and took me a while to even call her, but I did and she seemed normal. I was going to roll solo out to a bar last night just to get out, even though I know I would have had a horrible time. She offered to come along, I took her up on it and had a total blast. I got one friend in SD now, but I don't think CL is the route to go about it.

This is probably more of an OOT topic, but I'm looking for real responses and not just one liners fired at me. If it makes you feel better though, you can tell me how lame I am also.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

It is not lame at all. Most people expand their circle of aquaintances naturally, organically so to speak. To get to know new people when you are in a place or an environment where you have no network at all is something most people are completely untrained for.

I just have one piece of advice, it is simple, but it covers basically everything from personal life, love life, business, travel etc..:
Don't be afraid to make a fool of yourself!

Most people will all the time pretend that they know people, are popular, have a filled interesting schedule etc., but if you want to meet new people you have to eliminate that part of your behaviour. Drop the guard. In the café you are not reading the newspaper, you are not going anywhere important, you are not waiting for somebody.

It is that simple, and that difficult. Good luck!

[Kneel B4 Zod]

you seem to be doing the right things.

another thought would be online dating sites. you may end up meeting a girl to date, you may meet girls you don't want to date but would be friends with, and you will end up with stuff to do on Friday night instead of drinking whiskey in your bathtub. in general this is just good for your mental health.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

Definitely join a kickball league. Ultimate Frisbee is pretty popular in San Diego, too, and could be a good way to meet some people. Softball's pretty standard.

[MicroBob]

some of this kind of depends on the kind of person you are and how old you are.

some cool coffee-house type places can be okay too. but others can be completely lame and worthless.

I've been in Memphis for 4+ yrs and don't really have any tight friends here.

i have a GF who I met via an online-dating site and I have a few 'buds' I guess from rec-league soccer teams and also people I used to work with.
But I'm a bit more hermit like thanks to online-poker and I also just don't think I gel terribly well with most of the people here.

Looking forward to leaving.

[Don_Lapre]

It sounds like you have the right attitude and I don't think you're lame. Just go out on do stuff and explore San Diego, from what I understand is a great city. It might take some time but I bet within a year you'll have a circle of new friends.

[miajag]

Second Patrick's recommendation of joining a sports league. You'll meet a ton of new (and probably mostly cool) people.

[TheMetetron]

Bob,

Why have you been in Memphis for so long? Is it because of your girlfriend? Where do you plan on going next and when?

[MicroBob]

Yeah, I would have moved somewhere WAY cooler than here long ago.

Teresa and her younger brother are pretty close and live in the same house. She's pretty much the bread-winner and puts him through college (as well as whatever her parents earn back in South America).
She's been reluctant to leave mostly for reasons relating to that even though she pretty much dislikes Memphis as much as I do.


She can get a job as a travelling nurse and we can go pretty much anywhere in the U.S. for her work.
Our first stop will be in the Florida panhandle, Panama City/Destin area which I don't necessarily love either but at least it's a change.
My parents and sister live there and we have been several times and she loves it. So spending a few months there will end up being okay.

After that we'll likely travel around a little bit from place to place every 6 mths or so until we get tired of it and decide to settle down.

There's really very little I'll miss about Memphis except for the rec-soccer leagues which are really awesome (much better than leagues in other cities I've been informed).

[MicroBob]

Also note that I didn't exactly come here out of some great desire to move to Memphis.

I got a job doing play-by-play for the minor-league hockey team here. After I got canned a couple months later by the psycho team-owner (who fired most of her staff one by one) I decided I was just tired of moving around from job to job to job (it was my 4th state in 14 mths) and just needed to slow down.

I could have pursued openings in El Paso and Boise at the time but I said, "screw it. I'm tired of moving."

Well, now I've been here long enough and it's time to move on. hopefully to some place that doesn't suck eventually.