How Do You Make Friends in NOVA? (Arlington, Alexandria: house, college)

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by FairfaxGuy73

To answer AG above, my experience has always been the same. You have to get out a lot and take initiative to follow up with people. Normie's lists are just as good as anywhere to start. Someone also mentioned political groups. People can be pretty cohesive in those, but it depends. Get used to going to meetings and being ingored. If you have a great skill in an area, though, people will worship you. Emails are ignored by most people it seems. (Phone is better, but doesn't make so much of a difference. In person is golden.) You have an advantage being a woman because men love to talk to pretty young women, and women like to talk to women too.

Get used to not being at home a lot of nights, getting up early on weekends to go to things, and sacrificing your schedule. If a group is bad, just bail. There are tons of groups and lots of chapters. Once you get hooked into a group, you can find that there's too much to do and too many people.

As mentioned, over time there will be tons of friend attrition, so you have to make a point to keep making friends and keeping in touch. Most friends are very superficial here and dump you like a convenience item when an better offer comes along. (You might catch yourself doing the same thing.) It's just too easy to replace people here.

Best things to get involved with are projects that don't end. That way you have constant interaction. Groups need lots of volunteers. Becoming an officer is the best. Invite coworkers out to lunch.

Main thing is don't let really rude behavior bother you. You can talk right at people and they'll just ignore you. But if you evoke a need in these Machiavellites here such as having a position, a skill, or just being good looking, people will flock around you. Determining if they're just users -- as most are here -- is the most difficult part.

Sounds exhausting compared to hanging out at the pool.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by normie

Also, if you want to avoid power games I recommend Toastmasters. I was active with 2 groups for a little more than 3 years and was impressed by the encouragement everyone is given. Because everyone takes turns speaking, you learn a lot about each other and it's fairly easy to make friends there. I was invited to quite a few parties by people I met.

Now to be honest, only one of those people turned out to be a lifelong friendship--when I left Toastmasters I lost touch with most of the people I knew. But for the time that I was there, I felt happy with the friends I was making and I never encountered the sort of power jockeys you might find in other settings. I would try both a corporate group and a community group, to see which is more appealing to you. (They have very different feelings to them. The community groups tend to be more relaxed and social.)

TOASTMASTERS is a great recommendation. For people who don't know, its a group that focuses on public speaking.

I wasn't particularly interested in it because of the social aspect, I was actually interested in the public speaking part. But, the social aspect came along with it, you have a guaranteed group of people you'll be seeing every week.

Actually I am thinking about this 'how to make friends in ___'...and this seems to be a universal common question asked in almost ALL large urban areas.

I think the general answer...universal answer...is that in urban areas and their surroundings (including NOVA), people have busy lives and specific interests. If you don't have a shared specific interest with people, they simply don't have time/interest to do a superficial 'is everything okay?' with weather talk or whatever it is that people get in small towns across the entire globe.

So, by default, it seems BEST if a person chooses interests that interest them. They try to get good at those interests, and find similar people interested in those same interests. Interest-based friendships, so to speak.

Otherwise, the 'how are you?' and 'everything okay there?' type of friendships without getting excited about specifics...I think those enter into the future family that a person has, or ties/connections with your own family that you grew up as well.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by FairfaxGuy73

One guy doesn't even say "hi" to 16 year old girls in his neighborhood. Something to do with being thought of as a sex offender.

I'm guilty of similar behavior. I feel weird about being friendly to ANYone under 18, male or female. I think its a legit fear, unfortunately.

I have lived in Asia for years...Korea for 7 years. While I was there, Korean people are friendly to children in general. There was a famous court case that was news in Korea while I was there. A Korean man who was living or visiting the States...he saw a young boy in the street and patted him on the head and said how cute the boy was. The mother of the boy brought him to court over the issue. The Korean media picked up on it in completely bafflement.

To me, that's just the way it is in America. Everyone is afraid of everyone else, and everyone is assumed to be guilty before assumed innocent.

I'm not saying it is right, but those are just some of the many social rules we have to play by when in the U.S.

[normie]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

Actually I am thinking about this 'how to make friends in ___'...and this seems to be a universal common question asked in almost ALL large urban areas.

Yup. All you have to do is read the city-data forums to see the same comments. In every city, large and small, people post about how it's hard to move there and find new friends. And often you'll see people who have moved from the DC metro area who say "I moved from DC and everyone was friendly there. But I can't seem to make new friends since I moved to (insert name of new city)."

The bottom line is, no matter where you live it takes a while to make new friends, especially the older you get. You have to be patient, keep going to groups that interest you, and look for other people who look lonely (instead of trying to become friends with the guy who already seems to have a ton of friends).

[Bass101]

Originally Posted by normie

The bottom line is, no matter where you live it takes a while to make new friends, especially the older you get. You have to be patient, keep going to groups that interest you, and look for other people who look lonely (instead of trying to become friends with the guy who already seems to have a ton of friends).

How long does it generally take? I mean, my hubby and I have lived here for four years and have been trying to make friends without success for four years....we are very lonely in the meantime. We have only made one acquaintance so far, and that's it. I try to look for other lonely people, and join interest groups but everyone else seems to have lots of friends. I never seem to be able to find people who just moved here or are transplants like us and don't know anyone.

It's hard to be lonely and want so much to connect with other people, and put yourself out there and be rejected over and over. All I want is just one good girlfriend who I could go out with a few times a month and talk on the phone with....but that seems so hard to find when you're in your 30's.

[normie]

Where do you live, Bass? What sort of interests do you have? Maybe I know of some groups that would be fun for you.

[Bass101]

Originally Posted by normie

Where do you live, Bass? What sort of interests do you have? Maybe I know of some groups that would be fun for you.

I'll PM you Normie, thanks for the offer.

[JD984]

I guess I'd also put in a plug for foreign language courses, which are readily available in both NoVa and DC. I don't know that one would necessarily make lifetime friends there, but you typically have folks of different ages and backgrounds who support one another in their effort to learn another language. In that respect, it's different from some work environments, where people are basically set up to compete with one another.

And, yes, there are still many parts of the globe where people don't all speak English, and really appreciate the fact that Americans actually have made an effort to learn another language.

[Bass101]

Originally Posted by JEB77

I guess I'd also put in a plug for foreign language courses, which are readily available in both NoVa and DC. I don't know that one would necessarily make lifetime friends there, but you typically have folks of different ages and backgrounds who support one another in their effort to learn another language. In that respect, it's different from some work environments, where people are basically set up to compete with one another.

And, yes, there are still many parts of the globe where people don't all speak English, and really appreciate the fact that Americans actually have made an effort to learn another language.

I totally agree, a foreign language class would be perfect. I just don't really have the time/energy for that though, with work right now. I love the idea and I'm looking for something that wouldn't be as rigorous. Great idea!

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by Bass101

I totally agree, a foreign language class would be perfect. I just don't really have the time/energy for that though, with work right now. I love the idea and I'm looking for something that wouldn't be as rigorous. Great idea!

If you had a true social circle of friends, they would require much more time and effort than just a weekly language a class for an hour or two. But it sounds like not enough time/energy even for that.

i think I see a correlation there.

I'm just saying...