making friends and influencing people

Your answer: probably similar in many respects.

everyone KNOWS each other here, and i know no one

also, i'm not sure if i WANT to know anyone here

but i also know that i can't hold out much longer without someone to get drunk with who isn't my girlfriend

Have you tried going to shows by yourself and talking to people there? Like be like going with the ostensible point of writing about it, but chat up some folx.

(sorry about being all 1000 Qs ...)

The real key is to basically convince yourself that you are great. If you can fake confidence you'll win people over. If you win people over, you eventually don't have to fake confidence. It's just that it's really fucking difficult to do that.

i just realized today that i have never once in my life had to "make friends." they all just sorta fell in my lap, whether i wanted them at the time or not. god is now punishing me.

i don't have any real problem talking to people - yesterday I nearly tripped and killed myself, laughed about it with a girl who was sitting where I tripped, and made small talk for five minutes - its just that i have no idea how to extend this small talk into something uh organic without asking for phone numbers and looking like i'm trying to pick people up. also, i do not like ingratiating myself into conversations or situations because i know how often i myself like to be left alone while in public.

Yeah, sometimes hanging out at bars isn't the best way to try to meet people. You can meet people in karate class (gym, yoga, etc), book readings/signings.... go sit in a coffee shop like a dork with a book that shows what a cool dude you are, etc. People who are looking for other people do the same kinds of things, so it's not really embarrassing.

does that "people ask you what you're reading and then you become fast friends/lovers/a criminal duo" really happen?

(this is only a marginally faceteous statement)

i bet a pair of too small black wranglers and a "tigermilk" t-shirt would make me the toast of the town

That song "Accentuate the Positive" isn't as dorky as it seems. Even if you genuinely feel people are mostly idiots (as I do), if you start thinking positive, the negative stuff just sort of disappears and you can still look at people and say, "Hey, there goes an idiot," and at the same time happily accept them for the idiot s/he is. If you have that attitude, it will be hard for people not to like you and accept you right back. If you think that you are "great" (i.e. better than everyone) and really dwell on negativity, you're bound to come off as an asshole. (ah, the ironing is delicious).

BTW, I've never done the coffeeshop thing. That's pretty passive... especially since it sets you up to wait and wait and wait. The thing is to be aggressive, not passive, because nobody really cares about meeting your ass unless they want to fuck you (as noted above).

?!?! isn't olympia rriot-girl/arty-farty/emo central?

the no money thing is a problem :(

How about you actively convince Matos and DB to take a drive to Olympia!!

in other news, the new melt banana record is amazingly good

I feel you jess. This is one thing I wish kids of our generation had a little more formality in. I can't tell you how many times I've halfassed my way into a conversation with someone I barely know or just met, other of their friends come up, and NO INTRODUCTIONS take place.

The biggest thing about meeting new people and finding new friends is just to give everybody a chance. I'll talk to anybody for ten or fifteen minutes. About 50% of the time I find that I don't mind hearing what they have to say, because I can guide the convo to things I'm interested in. About 10% of those people that I keep talking to end up being the folks I make friends with and next thing I know I'm ushering their wedding and getting along with even more new people.

The trick is not to let snap judgements and intellectual prejudice get in yr way. Jess, you have a nice dry wit, and as a smoker you probably have lots of opportunities to make conversation that you're just not taking advantage of.

If you want somebody else to get drunk with, go to a bar and sit down. Soon enough somebody will get stuck sitting next to you. Remember that breaking into someone else's conversation is only rude if you're a humorless jackass with nothing to offer - even then you have the excuse of being in a bar, so it's not like people are going to hold it against you.

plus, i'm out of anti-depressants = crrrrrrraasssssshhh

that's no excuse!!!

my solution: driving all over town by myself all night and reading my crap poetry in coffeeshops and bars, coming home depressed and angry and drunk. eventually I found a kind of "community" but they were all poets and therefore whiny petty little people who never paid me back for beers.

when it changed: when my wife dropped out of law school and we moved. fuck, that wasn't too helpful either was it? me & kenan should have a call-in show....

a better advertisement against law school than even i could come up with (except the shit-ass pink wine stuff).

Good Lord. And what would we call that? "The Friendless Hour"? "The Depressed and Angry and Drunk Hour"? "The Ask A Guy With a Rapidly Encroaching Belly Hour"?

I do not see dollar signs.

Anyway, Jess, yeah I'm kinda with Millar up there. At a certain point you just have to not care who you meet. You can't let intellectual prejudices or whatever get in the way. It's just good to get in the practice of bullshitting with people and whatnot. It's like, you mentioned the cliquish nature of the hippie/indie/emo/whatever group, and how they dislike "townies". I mean, geez, do you really even wanna meet these people anyway? Fuck 'em. I mean, there's gotta be a bar somewhere where the folks who work on campus and deal with these little brats - staff, faculty, whatever - go after work. Maybe pop in there, sit on a barstool, have a cig, watch a Mariners game or something. I mean, the Mariners are gonna be in the playoffs in a couple months, so there's bound to be some excitement about that. It'll give you something to bullshit with people about anyway. I don't know, it's like, last Saturday I went to a baseball game and my friend that I share seats with didn't even show up - he just totally blew off the game. It's cool - I wasn't mad, we go to a bunch of games together. But what I did afterward was just go to the bar nearby and ended up getting drunk with a couple fellows - a guy in his 40's and a younger guy who works as a vendor at the park selling beer. No, we didn't sit around discussing Marx and Foucault, but to me it was a better alternative than just going home early on a Saturday night.

(Well not :( cos they are great but I suspect strongo has explored this option as fully as he wants to)

i don't have any real problem talking to people - yesterday I nearly tripped and killed myself, laughed about it with a girl who was sitting where I tripped, and made small talk for five minutes - its just that i have no idea how to extend this small talk into something uh organic without asking for phone numbers and looking like i'm trying to pick people up. also, i do not like ingratiating myself into conversations or situations because i know how often i myself like to be left alone while in public.''

Jess is ME or something. this thread is like looking into a mirror. I like the advice diamond and millar give but i don't drink or smoke. (At least you posted a thread abt it whereas i prob wouldn't).

And look at it this way: at least jess knows more abt pop kulcha. I mean, i don't even know much abt that so its not like i have much of a starting point as far as talking to people.

Another way to make friends is to not take any advice Gareth has ever given you, by the way all of his advice seems to turn out!!! Whatever Gareth advises me to do from now on, I will do the exact opposite.

Next!

Whatever you do, be proactive in doing it. It doesn't have to be you walking up to strangers and trying to start conversations; if you do something that isn't entirely solitary you *will* come into contact with other, probably like-minded, people.

Think of it like looking for a job. If you don't write application letters, ring contacts, etc., something *might* fall in your lap, but it ain't likely. If you start searching, things happen, even if they're not what you're expecting.

DJ STRONGO COMIN THRU!!

YOU KNOW HOW WE DO!!

*KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

never say i dont know how to pander to an audience

OH NO! NEW SHIT! PETER BROTZMANN FEAT. REDMAN!

*KA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

and then show them my willie

ew, who actually makes new friends at bars? isnt it implied that if ppl are talking to you they want to get nakey w/ u ?

there should be a corresponding thread of how to GET PERMANENTLY RID OF PEOPLE YOU KEEP TRYING TO AVOID, especially if THEY HAVE BOTH YOUR CELL AND HOME PHONE #S. But otherwise, on this topic - yeah, as cynical as it sounds, I'm finding as I go thru life, that having a common hate - especially if it's of another person - is a great way to bond with people, and get closer to them.

Haven't had too much luck in my area after 11 years, sadly. Despite my relatively eclectic interests I fear I don't have that magnetic/memorable quality that makes someone wonder what I'm up to today, and social media sickens me (partly because it just motivates me to have pity parties like this). So a bit out of sight out of mind by default, and now pandemic limits ambitions considerably unless I want to engage in some major cognitive dissonance. I just want to have lots of friends to jam and game with. By the way, after being here the exact same amount of time I've honestly not totally felt part of the ilx clique either. So that being said, maybe I can improve. How is everyone doing?

A pandemic does makes things more difficult. My own experience on making irl friends in later life is that voluntary or community activity is probably the only reliable route, for me at least.

Cliques in general are probably not worth the price of entry in terms of effort and commitment balanced against the payoff of belonging (not sure whether there is an ilx clique in practice however).

My bf wants to make friends in his new home, a small town, and he literally cold-called someone who does the same artisanal craft as him and asked if they could ever get together and talk shop and the guy was nice (if surprised) but never called him back. Now Christopher wanders forlornly around the house going, "Bobby, I hardly knew ye" and so on.

In short, even for the boldest, it's not easy. And Christopher is, I have to say, pretty magnetic and not very forgettable so I wouldn't be too hard on yourself.

Thanks for these thoughts. The ILX aside just plays into my uncertainty with how interesting people find me overall. It's definitely self pity confirmation bias to focus on the many(?) times where my more thoughtful posts are not engaged with, but I feel like it's realistic to say that I am nowhere near a notable personality. Could be for lots of reasons! Bad timing, avoiding controversial stances, avoiding confrontation, low frequency of posts, whatever. But IRL I am not often sought out either, so it's a bit of soul searching to figure out what I can do better cumulatively.