Establishing A Social Network To Meet A Partner

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I'm thinking that in order to get a girlfriend, it might be a good idea to establish a social network so I meet more people and improve my chances of meeting a potential partner.

The problem is I'm just not interested in very much. When people ask me what my hobbies and interests are, I get tongue-tied. Sure, I could bring up that I play guitar and drums, but I only play those instruments once in a blue moon nowadays, with no particular desire to increase the frequency, partially because my hands are a bit off. Sure, I could tell people that I like to play chess, but I've never studied the game and just play it for fun sporadically, but I've hardly played it lately.

The reality is I spend most of my free time watching videos on YouTube, or tv shows, and browsing the internet. I sometimes get into debates in the comments section on news articles on Facebook. That's essentially where all my free time goes, and I'd feel no particular inclination to change that, except for the fact that I want to get a girlfriend and I'm not meeting any new women doing what I'm doing.

It's the quantity problem over the quality problem again. You don't need to meet many new women to get a gf. You only need to meet one, and she doesn't need to be new. Therefore, the important parameter is to meet the RIGHT sorts of women in favorable environments, not meeting as many as possible.

The only way I could ever establlish a social network was doing things with other people.

Why not get back into the guitar?

My fingers are a little bit funny now and so I cant play as well as I used to.

Would you consider doing volunteer work? If you can't make a sustained time commitment, perhaps there's a one day event in your area which needs help? If you are really shy about social gatherings, perhaps your brother could join you?

But of all the women around my age that I've ever met, pretty much none have ever been interested in me romantically, so with those odds, quantity matters. If you have a suggestion as to how to go for quality rather than quantity and actually stand a chance of having girl be interested in me and me interested in her, I'm all ears.

So you see the dilemma.

I'm open to trying some new things or things I don't normally do, but if I did that I'd want to be confident that I'd actually be able to connect with people. Making friends, and especially female friends, has never been my strong suit, and I certainly don't want to participate in an activity in order to make friends, only to come away with no friends.

If you remember people’s opinions with a grain of salt, rather than get indignant if you don’t agree with something, I bet you would do well socially.

These days, people are scared of those who express very strong opinions and can’t bear to hear opposing opinions.

Those who cannot tolerate difference frequently resort to writing manifestos.

Maybe from lack of practice?

The idea of volunteer work has never been particularly appealing to me. I get fatigued enough with my full-time job, and the idea of volunteering with the intention of meeting a partner and coming away without meeting a partner, well quite honestly I'd regret volunteering, unless it served me in another way like to improve my job prospects in such a way that I could try for a higher-paying job.

I'm not so much worried about being shy at social gatherings. Some of it is I don't know what kind of social gatherings I could go to to meet women. Some of it is that making friends is something I'm just not particularly good at. I can sometimes establish a rapport with people and chat to them about mutually interesting subjects, but where I seem to struggle is evolving the acquaintanceship into a friendship, and as such if the other person doesn't take that step, the acquaintanceship tends to fizzle out.

No, it's an unrelated issue

I'm always open to hearing others' opinions, and whether I agree or not, I respect people's right to have an opinion.

It's my impression that many women (and especially ND women) need time to decide that they have a romantic interest in somebody. So, if you have met a lot of women and none of them had a romantic interest in you, my bet is that you either selected incompatible women or that they didn't have enough time to get to know you properly before having to decide if they had a romantic interest or not. You cannot fix selecting incompatible women with trying more women, and you cannot fix not giving them enough time by checking out more women either.

Besides, how do you actually know if a woman had a romantic interest? I find it pretty strange to claim that some women didn't have a romantic interest in me since I wouldn't ask them out anyway and thus I would never know, and it would only be a guess based on their interaction with me.

I'm always amused by the "volunteer" suggestion. I've volunteered consistently for 30 yrs with the city animal shelter, animal welfare groups, political organizations, the Red Cross etc. Volunteers are either retired seniors, married couples, teens, or generally socially awkward ppl. Who probably heard they'd meet someone if they volunteer. You meet lots of ppl, but in my experience, and as an observer, almost never a "significant other"

Yeah, I think volunteering should be left for people who are actually there because they want to volunteer. Not people who merely want to expand their social circle.

Those who are there volunteering for the sake of volunteering probably take it more seriously and do a better job.