Similar boat (sans furry), and I’ve recently decided I’m tired of being lonely. I’ve started going to a trivia night at a local bar that someone from my church hosts, even though I end up playing alone each week*, and I found a MCC church (basically, gay church) and went there, where I found a gay men’s discussion group I’m going to attend on Monday. I have two friends, both straight, but I’m hoping to get them and some people other people either through them or through trivia/discussion group to help start a bowling team.

*Even though I’m the only one playing without a team, I’ve come in second twice!

Meetups and clubs based around certain interests have worked well for me.

Examples: writing clubs, chess clubs, book clubs, hiking clubs, debate clubs, etc.

I have trouble at parties where I have to find things to talk about with people I don’t know, but at interest clubs then we’re all there for the same purpose and there’s a clear thing to talk about! If you hit it off with anyone, then you can begin hanging out outside of the club

Don’t you have masks you use to meet people? Slowly warm in and try to find out what they’re like?

Before remote work, that was one of the adult avenues of meeting new groups of people. Friends of friends are cool when you get involved in stuff they do and you don’t. Dare say, met cool people on the more questions focused dating sites where we didn’t have romantic interest but the conversation was cool.

Sometimes rekindling relations also gets you to meet the people they hang around nowadays…

In my country it’s possible to join clubs, for instance for a sport you like. I also like it as a way to meet new people because there is time to talk but also an activity to avoid awkward silences.

Start to learn a language and join a speaking club of some sort. You will definitely meet some new (and open-minded, well mostly) people there.

I’m as weird as you. Fight me.

I’ve met a friend at a Reddit trees meetup in Chicago, one through League of Legends, and a whole group through Minecraft!

Very recently I decided to touch grass and go do my flow arts in a club in my city, and I get all kinds of attention for being a badass, but nothing particularly personal. It probably doesn’t help that I keep turning girls down because I don’t really know how to engage with them. If I were someone else, it would probably be a good way to meet people. For me though, it’s all about that dance!

Have you considered finding events at your local public library?

they may not have anything necessarily furry related, but mine at least has a lot of incredible events and social meetings. Yours probably has something that piques your interest.

What you’re looking for is a “Third Space”- and libraries are a great third space.

Find people with similar hobbies as you on a particular community online. Back when I was active on Reddit, I had made two friends this way. Unfortunately, after the whole API shaboink, I left Reddit, and lost contact with one of them.

I met a few good friends by joining a local, free run club in the area. We were all the slow people at the back 😂

I moved and the friendships didn’t last, but I think that’s just part of life. The older I get, the more stars need to align to maintain relationships.

I moved a lot during my life, living in the 4th country now, stayed in each one for about 15 years. Therefore I had to find friends from outside of school.

Here is a list of how I found them:

20’s:
- through my cousin, he was a coworker with my future best friend
- started a band with a friend and his cousin, then we kicked out the friend and got a better drummer. Through the band we met a ton of other musicians while playing life and became friends with them
- after moving countries I made a house warming party and asked my (now ex) wife’s brother to invite his friends, I brought 50 liters of beer from Germany to this party in Sweden. This group became my core group of friends even after the divorce

30’s:
- work, I became very good friend with one of my coworkers, we even started a new company together because I was the only one who wasn’t afried to try it
- university, yeah normal
- one uni friend pulled me in to the company he worked for where there were very many super cool guys and I became friends with many of them. Even now like 7 years after we don’t work together we still meet regularly for grill parties, etc.

40’s:
- after another move, to South Korea, this one is tough because I still don’t speak the language, but after we got our son, my fiancé opened a public group on the Internet for couples who have a small child and one of the parents is a foreigner. Many of them don’t quite fit me as friends but we still meet some of them for play dates and so on so our friendship is growing
- I was on the playground and there was another foreigner dad and we started talking about the kids and everything else, then we exchanges phone numbers and are meeting regularly and it’s fun because conversations are easy, so he is the clothest thing to a friend I have here. But I have no idea how it would go if I need help in some bad situation, etc. because we didn’t have any yet.

So yeah, this is kind of where I found my friends outside of school. Perhaps it can be some inspiration for you.

I’ll be your friend.

Furry is definitely niche. Is there a local group where you can meet others? Facebook or meetup.com?

Do you work? That’s the next place to meet others.

And then there’s online friends! Digital pen pals. OOOOhhhhh I just dated myself.

Depending on where you are, local clubs probably abound. Anything outdoors is going to be a good start, because they have a vested interest in you coming back to the club to keep it going. All clubs will, but outdoors ones will not want to add any difficulties that might drive off the next generation in their club.

Hiking, running, rowing, biking, skydiving*, geocaching, gardening, birdwatching, fishing (rare, but they’re there!), sailing* (used windsurfers and small sailboats can be less than $1k; not great, but an option), motorcycles*, monowheels, fixer cars, mountain biking, sports (ultimate frisbee, pickleball, soccer, outdoor volleyball, basketball, baseball; all will probably have young adults in organized ways), dancing [don’t discount this one! Especially if you can find a swing club nearby, you will have tons of fun], mud runs, rock climbing*, bodybuilding…

Man, I can’t even think of all the clubs/hobbies I’ve briefly talked to people about. You can definitely find something out there that you’ll enjoy, but you may have to try a loooot. Don’t give up hope.

*these are probably a bigger investment or money sink than the others, either requiring gear, a significant training period, or ongoing costs for travel/maintenance

My friend seems to have good success meeting people in Discord channels about his niche interests, with the caveat that there is a lot more video calling than there is hanging out, because nobody lives in the same state. Maybe join a furry chat and say hello?

I met my best friend while we were both volunteering to help kids with some stuff we’re both really good at.

We’re both nerdy about the same things. I made a few friends from that activity but only one has stood the test of time 🥹