Preface, nothing against those that do.
Its increasingly difficult to ever do fun things with my current friends. Now that I’m to the point where I have the space and the money and time to do pretty much anything I want, no one else has any time to hang out. I get ignored a lot, which I get, they care about their family more. But I’m the type of person who likes to host stuff and do things.
Not a huge deal to me, I’m fine being alone, but its like, man, its really fun hanging out and playing some IRL video games or just cruising or walking around outdoors etc. I guess nobody really has time as they get old though. Or maybe I need to find a younger crowd 😆 I have no idea.
I’m nearly 43, so at the prime age of struggling to keep friendships alive. Here’s what I do - I appreciate I am not exactly a typical person - but also I don’t have kids which makes me slightly different anyway.
I do comedy a lot. Helps with making friends.
I also run in a run club
I take classes - comedy/clown (i trained at a clown school instead of going to university), acting, swordfighting, tap dancing, music. Music is usually 1:1 but then I go to comedy and music jams and meet people.
But one can extrapolate to - pottery, painting, robot building, hackathons, book clubs, political groups, conservation, hiking…
Usually I wait til week 2 or 3 and suggest grabbing a bite or a drink before or after class. Do it enough and you just end up with friends who invite you to birthday parties and shit and now you have friends.
And then my wife’s friends all have partners and we’ve formed a HABS (husbands and boyfriends) movie club. We are currently watching a Sylvester Stallone movie once a week.