I feel that. It feels all the socials "wells or waterholes" have dried up, and everything's migrated to apps. I know some young people complain about the same regarding dating: you have to be on a dating app as trying to approach people outside them seem suspect... Meanwhile the culture on this apps can be atrocious, and favour the lowest common denominator...

/rant

On the more constructive side: I play the numbers game, I guess. I socialize with everyone and participate in anything I feel remotely interesting, when moving to a new place or similar. Visiting cafes, art sites, local clubs for this and that, sport events. And yeah, I used to hit the pubs. Then I just interact - not /to make friends/ explisitely, but just as part of me being normal. In the end, after talking with everyone, everywhere I go, you probably have interacted with hundreds of people, and you can of end with a handful that you hang out with from there. It just kind of happens.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to do this in a (very) forced or creepy way, just in a way I feel is natural and "totally normal", at least to me. E.g. at a gallery looking at a picture, if I really like the picture, and I see someone else studying it - and they don't look aloof or like they would mind - I carefully try to strike up a chat. If they signal they don't want, I disengage.

But, yeah, I find the lack of non-drinking meeting places a drag...

[–] ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago

Thanks, I may try to talk to passers-by more often and see where it goes, even just to excersize social skills my demographic seems to have missed. Honestly it feels these days like people in my age group (I'm 30) feel imposed upon by conversation but I too have seen others complaining about the same issue, so maybe I should "be the change I want to see in the world" lol.

Honestly as for the "creepy," this may sound batshit insane but I'm not sure how much of it is really just in my own head. It's not like I'm overtly sexual in my approach or anything (well again I haven't really tried "my approach" yet either since I quit bars just before the pandemic, that is still so far theoretical), I'm looking for something long term if I can find the right person, I just feel creepy even trying to ask someone if they'd like to get to know eachother over coffee, and have no clue how I would get my proverbial foot in the door (something like your art gallery suggestion which I will likely use, I haven't been to my city's art museum in too long.) Once I get to talking to someone I think I can hold my own, I'm no [current male sex symbol] but I have jokes, a job, a house, and I look human enough, the hard part is really "hey." It isn't even the rejection that stops me, it's straight up fear that I'll be labeled creepy (and have to see this person ever again) or that I'm imposing and I don't want to be an asshole and ruin some poor woman's day by asking her out for coffee (which you see women complaining about all the time, but idk those dude's sales pitch, maybe they're really creepy about it and my pitch isn't, or maybe they don't try to lead with something like the art gallery, idfk, maybe all of that is just me overthinking because of crippling ADHD lol). Maybe you're right, lead with talking about something in the surroundings, if she seems cool and receptive ask for a number/coffee date.

I know I rambled quite a bit, but tl;dr:

Thank you for the advice, I'm gonna try this for a while and see how it goes!