[nicbou]

In Berlin I tell people to join clubs and other communities centred around hobbies. Regular exposure to the same people encourages deeper interaction in a more relaxed context.

In general I recommend people to work with the garage door open, and to actively interact with people on local online communities. I forgot who wrote that a blog post is a search query for like-minded people. I met a ton of people through my personal website and social media activity.

I don’t recommend general purpose meetups as they tend to graduate quality people quickly and leave behind a lot of weirdos that tend to form the core of the attendees. It’s also hard to meet strangers when you have nothing in common.

Note that all of these methods require you to be a genuine participant. There are no shortcuts to meeting people, and thus no shortcuts to meeting potential partners. People who try to find shortcuts ruin communities and force them to put up fences.

[burnt-resistor]

Exactly. Technology can, at most, facilitate real interactions, but it cannot and should not replace theme.

Another thing is to not to "wait for Godot" by passively waiting for others' initiative and instead be the source of initiative by default.

Finally, PSA: don't buy into any of the immature objectification, stereotyping, or egotistical nonsense... be real and treat others as human beings, not a means to an end.