When to Go Out and meet people

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I have this problem trying to decide what is the best time to go out and try to meet new people. I try to figure the best time to go and do things and go to places such as movie or music events that are open to public. But every time I have the free time and the desire to "go out" I try to use logic when I make my decision when and where to go out; such as the weather, the time of day, the location, the event that is most likely to draw lots of people that I can meet. But I always seem to pick the times when traffic is at the lowest point and there is hardly anyone around, and yet the very times I believe no one would try to go out and socialize is precisely the time I see the most people.

For example, this Thursday I came back to my hometown for Thanksgiving, tonight I decided to see the new James Bond thinking : "Perhaps I will see people from my high school who are still in town and I can try and seize the opportunity and try to have a positive experience." But I thought to myself: "Well, it's too cold, nobody would go out, even if it is a Friday, but I have been consistently wrong before so therefore I should ignore my naive logical assumptions and just GO!. But there is a home game tomorrow and the weather is supposed to be better so may be there will be more people then instead of tonight."

It became sort of a George Contanza paradox: "should I do the opposite to improve my chances of my goal because defaulting to my instincts as an Autistic person, but if my new found impulse is to do the opposite, isn't therefore logical that I must do the opposite of what I intend to do as the opposite of my instinct? And therefore come closer to my goal by doing the opposite of doing the opposite, but by wanting to do the opposite of what I intended as my opposite action against my predispositions I end up right where I start"



So after that battle of wits with myself, I just decided: "ok I will go, but if the parking lot is sparse I won't actually commit myself to going in.. And that is exactly what happened, the parking lot was pretty empty and therefore didn't seem worth going in, but I thought maybe this is the one chance that I will meet someone I know and actually have a positive social experience without the large number of people.

I go through this in my mind every time I have the urge to try and socialize and it is depressing. I can already guess replies are going to say: "you are overthinking, you are overthinking!! !

I'm thinking how do you meet anyone at the movies? You get your ticket, popcorn and head into a dark room to watch a screen by yourself. A coffee house would be better. I'm not a bar person, but if you're younger that might be a place to meet people.

Towns can vary a lot, but maybe pay attention to Coffee Shops, Grocery Stores, or Libaries that have posted bulletin boards. They may have social events posted.

Either they already know each other or they must be extremely extroverted. I saw someone once at this show, but we already knew each other from years before. I also met a couple of old friends at the gynocologist's office , but I don't think that would help you. Nothing came out of any of the meetings.