How do you make friends online?

Take jokes seriously. Put words in people’s mouths. Make wild accusations. Make sweeping generalizations. Be obtuse. Grossly oversimplify. Refuse to empathize. And, most importantly, don’t consider new ideas and never change your mind.

I don’t feel I make real friends online like the way you do in real life. there is just not enough skin in game no pun intended. The closer physically (in space) you are to someone you know the harder it is to be friends but also the closer the friendship.

I don’t even know how to make friends irl. Even on a gaming discord channel, I’ll see people in the voice chat playing a game I’m playing and be like, ‘If I go in there, what am I going to say? I have nothing to say. I don’t even know these people. Fuck it, I’m not going in there. I’m going to play on my own, fuck them, those fucking assholes.’

And then nothing changes.

Play niche indie/retro multiplayer games, join a community small and tight-knit enough that everybody knows everybody, so you can easily become a regular in the scene.

I’ve only managed to make it work a handful of times.

There needs to be a connection to something IRL from the online community. Maybe you like the same music, hobby or even playing games (that might be online but it is a “doing” action in person). It should also be something positive. You aren’t going to make healthy connections from “anti-something” communities.

Communities like Lemmy/Reddit are particularly bad for this since they’re predicated on anonymous sharing and not really keeping you in touch with a group of repeat contacts.

You must have enough free time to end up online and shoot the shit in a direct conversation. Maybe an online chat or voice chat or Discord or something. You can’t really make friends easily with asynchronous contact.

I saw a comment about friendship long ago and I have never been able to find it again. It said something like: to be friends you must share at least two things out of this list: stage in life, physical proximity, common interest, shared predicament (e.g. job)…. There were a couple of other factors I can’t remember, but the more I think about it this seems to hold true.

Eventually the connection you make needs to be bigger than how you meet. If you meet while playing DotA, and then you stop playing DotA, is there still any glue that holds you together that would push you to keeping connected through a different medium?

I’ve tried to make efforts to make friends a few times online. It has never worked from trying. People on Lemmy even express interest in a social chat group and I made one. No one ever joined. Well, one person did but lost interest in a couple of days. Good luck in your endevours. Share tips if you succeed.

You.. you can make friends?!!?

In forums and chats, go places where you can ask questions as much as you can tell people why they’re wrong.

The way to make friends with people is to listen to them.

You absolutely can! I played Dayz for over 12 years, and have met counltess people during that time some of which i still play games with today. Its a great game to get to know people if thats what you’re looking for. However the learning curve for the game is steeper than others.

If youre not aware Dayz is open world, zombie apocalyptic game. The great part about the game lies in communication, you have to talk via voice comms, otherwise you’re very likely to get shot on the spot.. The game can absolutely be infuriating at times, but personally it is the game i have the most fun memories from. Nothing beats the adrenaline kick when you and your friends get into a firefight and have to fight to not die.

Best of luck if you try it out. If you want to have a look at some gameplay before trying, check out TheRunningmanZ on YT.

Same tbh. I don’t have any tips but would love to learn! I’m also awful at keeping long distance friendships unless they’re okay to just exchange memes every day.

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idk but I will trade you because of the two I am certainly more adept at online friendship

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Making friends through text can be hard. Obviously you want to be in a space where people share the same interest as you, as a common interest you can discuss.

If you play video games, it’s a lot easier the break that ground. Chatting to people in-game is a good way to make friends as you always have a bounce back topic as you learn more about each other.

Typing sucks, I always use voice or ask someone if they want to. So much easier to gauge someone that way. But online gaming has become more anti-social over the last 5+ years.

I’ve only managed it accidentally.

But usually the pattern is contacting/getting contacted due to some matter that needs discussing. The source for that can be needing some pointers on using someone elses code, or providing feedback on how someone moderates, etc.

For me it’s usually come from participating more extensively. Engaging in community building such as my modding titanfall and hosting northstar servers. Starting a bunch of lemmy communities.

Then, once something gives you a reason to go a couple back and forths into an exchange, and there is mutual interest, it just keeps going. After that you can pick up with the same skillset you’d use with someone you’ve met in person.

The difference is that you’ll need to keep it going by deliberately reviving the conversation now and then. That won’t happen by running into the person face to face or some similar context the way it might work with a coworker or someone in your social circle.