[openknot]

For guys, martial arts is a pretty good activity for creating relationships with others.

The downsides are that it can be expensive for membership fees, take a lot of commitment and time, and also be a competitive, high-pressure environment. Each of these can be mitigated to some extent, but it takes effort and independent thinking (especially when resisting the social pressures to be competitive).

Other activities can include: rock climbing (though no personal experience), board games including chess (I heard lots of good anecdotal experiences with this), Dungeons and Dragons (minority opinion, but this can be tough to commit to due to the required time, often ~4 hours per week), other physical sports (e.g. pickup basketball if you have a skill at it), and volunteering. Book clubs can also be good places to meet others and have discussions.

Committee activities can also be a good place to meet others. I suspect that many older adults join committees such as homeowner associations or parent-teacher associations, partially to meet other people and socialize. Outside of these, there are committees at smaller, local non-profits where people can also meet and socialize with others, while working toward a goal.

[weakfish]

+1 for rock climbing. It’s an inherently social sport with the Belayer relationship, I’ve made many friends in college through just asking random folks to belay.