Is this anyone else’s experience? I don’t fit neatly in any box, I have friends in all of them. I have friends in traditional marriages with the woman as the homemaker, I have all sorts of queer friends. I have friends that think videogames are edgy, others playing D&D every second day, others in sword battle reenactment, others in crochet. Never struggled relating to them or them to me. I moved around a lot, still found “my people” in no time. We are all multifaceted people with a variety of interests and thoughts.
The part where he talks about video games definitely feels like my experience, at least when it comes to meeting people outside of the context of a specific game and its community.
When I’ve gotten into convos in these situations, usually it’ll be evident they mostly only play some set of the following games:
Overwatch
Rainbow Six
Genshin Impact
Stardew Valley
Helldivers 2
Last of us
God of War
GTA
Red Dead 2
That’s not a complete list, but for the most part it will be a bunch of games like that with a sizeable, committed, “normie” following that I don’t play. I can’t bond with these people over games even though on a surface level we’re both “gamers”, because the only game we’ll have in common is Minecraft.
I think the gap here is that for someone like me or anon, we have interests and want to find people who are also interested in that thing, but from the sounds of your post you’re finding people and getting your interests from them. In the latter case, of course there’s no trouble connecting with people, because you’re more willing to mold yourself to do so.
I have been mulling over your comment for a couple of days.
I think the set up is different. I have a lot of things I am interested in, but none that is fundamental. So I can easily start a conversation over a shared interest, even if the other interests do not align. Sometimes I pick up extra stuff on the way, but mostly I use a limited shared interest to set the foundations from which to develop a friendship. I find that once you get talking for a bit, you don’t need a specific shared topic anymore.
Do you aim to build friendships fully connected to your interests?
Everything you just described is my experience too, minus the part about having a lot of interests already.
The thing that I was describing is that, for whatever reason, the things that I find interesting are niche enough to others that I won’t find people who already know/care about the same things organically. That’s not much of an issue if you have enough interests to balance that out, but I don’t really have that.
To put it another way, I’m not filtering for people who already have most of my interests, I’m filtering for people who share any of my interests, but that’s already filters most because I’m into few things with little popularity. So, “connected to [my] interests?” Yes. “Fully”? No.
That probably sounds really lonely, but I honestly don’t mind that much. Like you’ve described, most of the friends I’ve had for a while I can talk about whatever with. What I’m describing is mostly a mild inconvenience when meeting new people.
Is this anyone else’s experience? I don’t fit neatly in any box, I have friends in all of them. I have friends in traditional marriages with the woman as the homemaker, I have all sorts of queer friends. I have friends that think videogames are edgy, others playing D&D every second day, others in sword battle reenactment, others in crochet. Never struggled relating to them or them to me. I moved around a lot, still found “my people” in no time. We are all multifaceted people with a variety of interests and thoughts.
Count your blessings
The part where he talks about video games definitely feels like my experience, at least when it comes to meeting people outside of the context of a specific game and its community.
When I’ve gotten into convos in these situations, usually it’ll be evident they mostly only play some set of the following games:
That’s not a complete list, but for the most part it will be a bunch of games like that with a sizeable, committed, “normie” following that I don’t play. I can’t bond with these people over games even though on a surface level we’re both “gamers”, because the only game we’ll have in common is Minecraft.
I think the gap here is that for someone like me or anon, we have interests and want to find people who are also interested in that thing, but from the sounds of your post you’re finding people and getting your interests from them. In the latter case, of course there’s no trouble connecting with people, because you’re more willing to mold yourself to do so.
I have been mulling over your comment for a couple of days.
I think the set up is different. I have a lot of things I am interested in, but none that is fundamental. So I can easily start a conversation over a shared interest, even if the other interests do not align. Sometimes I pick up extra stuff on the way, but mostly I use a limited shared interest to set the foundations from which to develop a friendship. I find that once you get talking for a bit, you don’t need a specific shared topic anymore.
Do you aim to build friendships fully connected to your interests?
Everything you just described is my experience too, minus the part about having a lot of interests already.
The thing that I was describing is that, for whatever reason, the things that I find interesting are niche enough to others that I won’t find people who already know/care about the same things organically. That’s not much of an issue if you have enough interests to balance that out, but I don’t really have that.
To put it another way, I’m not filtering for people who already have most of my interests, I’m filtering for people who share any of my interests, but that’s already filters most because I’m into few things with little popularity. So, “connected to [my] interests?” Yes. “Fully”? No.
That probably sounds really lonely, but I honestly don’t mind that much. Like you’ve described, most of the friends I’ve had for a while I can talk about whatever with. What I’m describing is mostly a mild inconvenience when meeting new people.
Thanks for being willing to share your experience!
I definetly don’t fit in but also have friends and a partner i live with (of 10 yrs)
I mostly LARP at it though because I don’t fit in. Am 58, m and don’t want to fit in :)