you can just do things

making friendships in your 30's

This is a self congratulatory post.

Sometimes the best life advice sounds like terrible life advice.

-toss a coin to know how you really feel about something
-ignoring problems can help clarify what’s important
-sleep it off

but "post on Reddit asking strangers to be your friend." Or "start a Discord group with people you've never met." -

I’ve not heard this before but now I’m certainly the one saying it.

How it started….

Approx two weeks ago, I posted on Reddit with what felt like an embarrassingly vulnerable question.

I asked if anyone wanted to come to a picnic.

What I didn't expect was the overwhelming response - the post absolutely exploded with:

• 66,000 views

• 112 upvotes

• 72 comments

• 50+ direct messages (only 1 dick pic)

• 26+ people added to the group

• 15 people who came to the picnic event

• 3 who dropped out last minute

lol wtf

Turns out… I wasn't the only one feeling that peculiar adult loneliness of "I have people I know, but not people I do things with."

The offer

I proposed what we now fondly call the "OG picnic" for the upcoming long weekend.

I explained that I wasn’t looking to date, stated my disillusionment at options to meet likeminded people and my effort was purely to put feelers out and see if anyone else was chill.

To make it as welcoming and safe as possible, I chose a location with plenty of people nearby, bathrooms, even security presence, and made it clear that the chances of getting murdered would be slim to none.

The sentiment for respondents was pretty unanimous and boiled down to “I’m down for this, it’s the social anxiety that prevents me from hanging out”

My thought when hitting “post” was “maybe i’ll find someone to go bouldering with me, or just a small group to hang out and eat”.

Quite quickly, I realised I’d need to form a group of some kind to chat/ figure out logistics.

From those original 50 some DMs, our community grew through a fascinating “funnel”

• 26 people joined the WhatsApp group (65% conversion)

• 15 came to the OG picnic (37.5% of initial DMs)

• 10 showed up for our first laser tag event (25% of initial DMs)

• 7 came back for the second event (70% retention from first event)

The first event we went to was 3 hours at laser tag on a Friday night. I can confirm that sweating it out with a bunch of strangers, while defending your team against an enemy 12 year old birthday party is real friendship accelerant.

me w my new buddies

Our group actually met another group while at laser tag. And, like a friendship amoeba- we’ve now invited them to our group.

I noticed the discord activity after the event, even among the people that hadn’t attended was heightened. My assumption is that having met eachother/ having knowledge that we *were* all real, made it a safer bet to interact.

Not a single axe murderer among the group (though I suppose it's early days).

not everyone pictured but some vibes 🤌

Then came the “OG” event- borne out of me wistfully staring out my window one weekday and thinking “I wanna do that”.

The food trucks were a hit - someone brought with them an obscene number of packs of cards against humanity (pictured). We played some non cringe ice-breaker games that I thought up on the spot. We got food and overall stayed into the night enjoying live music.

We are living in strange times though.

It’s normal to have parasocial relationships, long distance best friends and lovers. The pursuit of these friendships is often seen as “cringe” and there’s no great alternative for sourcing them aside from “meet through other friends”.

Societal rules you can break safely (probably)

1. "Don't meet people from the internet" (Do meet them, in public spaces)

2. "Don't invite strangers to hang out" (Do invite them, in groups)

3. "Adult friendships need to be serious" (They really, really don't)

That's it. That's the whole secret. You can just... do things. Start groups. Organise meetups. Play laser tag. Drive people places. Film things together. Build community.

Will it always work? No. Will some people think you're weird? Probably. Will you end up with stories worth telling and connections worth keeping? Absolutely.

So here's your permission slip to do it. Start the group. Send the text. Post the thread. Break the social rules (safely and consensually).

The best things in life start with "This is probably a terrible idea, but..."

P.S. If you're in Perth and reading this, yes, we're still meeting up (next event is Snooker tournament). Yes, you can join.