I mean, the sad part is that there’s really no other place guys and gals mix besides work or school. Once you graduate it’s just work that remains. I don’t even mean romantically either. I think it’s hand in hand with the loneliness epidemic everyone keeps talking about. Where do you meet new people? Women can be so rare in some men’s lives that to just say “ask if they like you” almost implies that they should ask every woman which both sides know is not what should be happening.

Ideally you would be mixing with strangers at a pub or something where if you put your foot in your mouth and somebody says no to friendship/partnership you both go your separate ways and no harm no foul, you probably won’t even run into each other for days/weeks, but now everything is just shitty.

• Clubs are too loud to talk at, so while you might be adjacent to a bunch of new people you won’t be with any new people.

• Bars work somewhat decent, people are friendly, the counter is where strangers mix. It does require you to imbibe a steady stream of booze though. You’ll also have to jump around until you find one that you like. Same thing with smoking areas, smokers are crazy friendly, asking for a light is a great ice breaker. I actually used to carry a lighter just for this reason, and I never even smoked. Still a terrible habit to adopt to get friends though.

• Any speed-friending or dating events/sites are just crawling with cringey people (I once went to one and had someone try to sell me a timeshare)

• Everything has gone up in price, which sucks because now you go to an event and have a pressure to make it worth the money which just adds to the shittiness of the night.

• The most reliable place people hang with strangers is the internet, but even then it’s not a conversation. It’s letters and pen pals.

Way too many people just have work left to meet people and that’s not exactly a great place to pursue a relationship because careers cause way to many tripwires. A foot in the mouth brings in HR. Someone gets promoted and now there’s a power dynamic. Yes it’s inherently riskier to pursue people there. I think guys complain about it more just because they’re more isolated and deal with it more.

I spent a lot of time when I graduated trying to find somewhere where I could find people and I finally landed on the convention scene and even met my wife there, but it took almost 5 years of leaving my house, trial and error, lots of events, and some truly boring expensive nights.