It was so easy to make friends during my undergrad because I lived in the dorms. But I lost half of them due to a messy situation with my ex girlfriend, and the other half doesn’t live in town anymore.
Now I’m 22, working on my Master’s, and I feel like I have no one.
Spend time with people doing things. Then invite them out for drinks at the end of the things.
Remember back to freshman orientation:
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Talk to people in your field, the PhD candidates, other MS students, hell even the undergrads
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Pick up and engage in social hobbies. If you’re sporty regularly showing up at pickup games is a good way to start, for more nerd inclined joining a game, book, or anime club. The idea is find a social setting for something you love doing so it’s less pressure for everyone involved
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Go out to the social centers- bars, parks, malls- if you find a place you like you can get to know the regulars
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Join a singles activity group- these aren’t just for dating
This is wonderful advice. Thank you very much. I’m stealing all of this :)
One last tip, try to organize an online game night with your friends who moved away, discord has a couple built in and I highly recommend boardgamearena.com
From clay of course :(
Reiterating the suggestion to take up social hobbies, but also just take up hobbies in general. It gives you interesting things to talk about with other people. For example, I started painting, and talked to other people about it, and now some of them have taken it up and its given us more to talk about and brought us closer together. I find that people like hearing about experiences with hobbies, as its kind of a neutral ground, especially if you’re not an expert in it. It also helps if it’s a visual hobby like painting where I can show people a couple of pictures on my phone as explanation.