[wheats]

>"The best thing I did was become the shameless type of person who actively tries to create/join/combine social circles. It pretty quickly put me in touch with other people who do the same, and my social circle grew naturally after that."

Any advice? That's a hard thing to do!

[curiousllama]

For sure. Assuming you have a few friends to start:

(0) Reach out to everyone. Everyone. That old college acquaintance you just noticed is in your city? Get coffee/happy hour. You never know who's looking for more friends.

(1) Encourage people to invite/bring their friends when you organize something. Hit up one friend for happy hour/food. "You've mentioned [coworker] a few times before - would he/she want to join us?"

(2) Host (implied) large group gatherings. Easy to say "come over, and bring whoever!" I like sports, so I host for the super bowl, World cup, March Madness, etc. - but could be anything. Throw parties for other peoples' birthday/going away/coming-to-the-city. Advance level: some bars are often open to "hosting" an event - they'll just rope off an area if you promise X people will show up.

(3) Host recurring events. Board Game nights, poker nights, dinner parties, wine club, etc. Great way to deepen relationships.

(4) Start group chats. Much easier to maintain a relationship with 4 group chats than 20 individuals. If one can't get critical mass, post the plan in another.

(5) Be actively welcoming. Make a point to intro yourself to new people/social stragglers on the edge, and greet people by name when they show up in a new-ish space (e.g., my friend brings his new gf to a board game night; she doesn't know many people here; stand up and say "Hello Janice! Great to finally meet you. How has your week been?"). Forge connection, don't just co-exist in the same space.

I'm sure there's more...

[dr_orpheus]

> (3) Host recurring events

This has been a key one for me and my friend group. And this may also be instead of "host" recurring events its "go to" recurring events. We try and do trivia every week and as it becomes recurring it becomes part of everyone's schedule itself and not something to schedule and plan for which takes a lot of the pressure off. We kind of have a "core" group but everyone will occasionally bring coworkers, friends/family who are in town, etc. that help expand the social circle.

[dataexporter]

These are great suggestions!

I had always been the organizer in my friend group organizing trips, meetups and would spend initiating conversations and discussion even in the group chats.

Due to certain life circumstances I had gradually stopped and the entire group actually fell apart except a few friends who lived in the same cities.

Your post actually gave me an impetus to reach out to a lot of the older groups and reconnect. Thank you.

[nickgray]

^^ this is great advice

[radihuq]

Check out this book called The 2 Hour Cocktail Party. I used it as structure to host a small get together last week and it was a lot fun!

I think as other comments allude to scheduling can be really hard so its a good idea to start sending out invitations 2-3 weeks in advance. Also don't be afraid to invite old friends - I reconnected with some friends I haven't talked to in 7+ years and it was great