This year I plan on getting out of my comfort zone and getting out there. After the Christmas and New Year break, I realised that I am stuck in a rut.
As we get older it is a lot harder to meet new people and make new friends, research shows that at our age the best place to do that is at work. Whilst that might work for some, it doesn't apply to me, I work with mostly older men, very young boys and very few women that you can't really socialise with. I would love to meet another woman in my profession, that I could socialise with, but that is so unlikely.
Alongside that when you're single and looking to get into a relationship with someone, you do not really want to be solely dependent on them. I have fallen into this trap before, you end up spending all your time with them, having all the same friends or basically adopting their friends. Then what happens when things don't work out?
You're left alone, without any friends of your own and because you spent all of your time focusing on your partner you have forgotten your few existing existing friends and all about yourself too. Trust me it is a recipe for disaster, why do you want to be in a relationship where you have to rely on them for absolutely everything!
I want to be able to start a relationship where I have my own set of friends separate from them, where should things not work out I am not left standing on my todd. You also want to be able to do things separately too, it is nice to be able to escape the realities of life's challenges and just have a good old laugh with some mates.
That is why I decided to have a look on the net for ways to meet up with new people and I came across a site called Meetup. It has lot's of options for many different age ranges, activities and groups.
You can create your own meetup activities or ask to join existing ones. I found a Norwich 20's & 30's Meetup group, that meet every week at a local pub. So I bit the bullet and went along to this weeks meet... and here's how I got along.
When I turned up I was a little lost but having already looked at the pictures of people that had said they were going I was mentally prepared for people to look out for. I was about to tell the group that I was at the bar, when I saw someone I recognised and he came over and spoke to me.
He was really friendly and introduced me to some of the group, it was kind of difficult to speak to everyone because there were so many. It was kind of shocking how many people do turn up, there must have been at least 40.
Another newbie turned up called Marie and we got to talking. It was quite nice to find someone who was a nervous as me, so we stuck together. She was really interesting and it turns out that we live quite close to one another, I made sure we exchanged numbers and hope we will meet up again soon.
We ended up mingling with some of the longterm members and some more newbies which was really relaxed and fun. I thought the longterm members were very nice, especially making the effort to come over and talk to us.
It was surprising to find that everyone just wanted to meet new people too, and talking to the group the main types of people that turn up seem to be Scientists, Engineers or in IT. Something I find quite funny and just goes to show the kinds of people that are open minded enough to try to meet new people. Everyone I met was very friendly and approachable, so I will definitely be going along to the next event, and would highly recommend looking up a group in your area if you are in the same boat as me.
If you aren't looking to make new friends and prefer the more traditional online dating sites then why not have a look at sites such as, Hertfordshire Dating Site, Derbyshire Dating, Bedfordshire Dating, Single Women in Dyfed, Staffordshire Dating or for something with less commitment No Strings Dating.
Always be kind, you never know what personal battle people are fighting.
"Making new friends" always sounds to me, like making apple pie for myself. It seems, that for blogers, it is not a big deal to make friends from followers. That people obviosly already want to be your friend or just near you. Geting new friend from internet is always much easier, than to do it in a real world. But I like sometimes comunicate and have a smal talks at network. I use for that chatroulette https://coomeet.com/en, even when I'm just bored it always bring for me pleasure. At last days I already have numbers from two pretty girls, but I a bit shy to call them at real date...
ReplyDeleteI can understand your perception that it might be easier for most bloggers to make friends from followers, but for me I am fairly small time and haven't had any followers approach me to 'make friends'. I also find the internet to be very hard to make friends as it can be very easily perceived as a come on, when you just want to be friends. Plus the whole point of going out to a meet up is for actual interaction rather than taking over the internet. That's not to say what other people are doing is wrong, it just doesn't seem to work for me is all.
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