Social stuff

[kjwcode]

One of my back-burner tasks has been trying to be more social and "out there". I'm naturally a fairly extreme introvert, so it can be challenging. I enjoy interacting with people, though -- but that's a pretty recent development for me, perhaps in the last five years or so.

DW is one part of the solution. I'm back on IRC (mostly in #dreamwidth and #dreamwidth-dev -- haven't found any other channels that tickle my fancy yet) and recently joined Meetup and the Ubuntu Vancouver group. I haven't been to one of the events yet, but I'll be at the Ubuntu Jam with Oneiric on Friday.

I'm always looking for new and interesting ways to meet people, though. People here are among the friendliest I've met yet, so I'm wondering if I can pick your brains. What else should I be looking at? Where do you interact with people, both online and IRL? Do you have suggestions of mailing lists (I know -- how archaic! But hey, I'm old skool), IRC channels, websites, groups, and so on?

I'm a late-30s bi male who is pathologically interested in science, computing, maths (though still a relative newbie in this subject), culture, and everything else in the interests list in my profile. My strengths are being pretty easy-going, curious, and fairly knowledgeable. My weaknesses include not suffering fools, bigots, homophobes, etc. terribly well and being utterly addicted to caffeine. I'm in a committed relationship so not looking for singles specifically, though I certainly have nothing against them. :)

Any suggestions?

Comments

[azurelunatic]

To affirm some of the stuff you've already got there: I've really been enjoying the local-area tech meetups I've been going to.

If you haven't cruised down the Dreamwidth Latest Things page yet, it's great for a lot of fascinating things.

[oda]

I'm a nerdy disabled introvert(ish) so I don't really get out much; most of the people I'm friends with I met online, or through people I met online. I spend way too much of my time on social media, as well as online games such as MMOs. I also get lots of pleasant casual chitchat with people just for walking around with the dog.

I think "follow your interests" are words to live by. You're going to be happier being friends with people who like the same things. Before I was disabled I really adored going to tech groups, for instance; I'm not really up to it anymore or I would still go. I sampled several different kinds and settled on the ones that I liked. Just going out to see cultural events or whatever is good, too.

Online, I'm finding a pleasant amount of people-discovery on Diaspora; something about social media seems to make it easier to bump into people. I don't know that it's as good as Dreamwidth security-wise, but it doesn't have to be if you don't write anything too private there.

I've stumbled into good forums just by web-searching for a niche interest, too. And of course there's user discovery via communities and other people's friends lists here. Someone else's posts can be a place to get to meet someone through their comments and yours.