Reach out and spend wads of money on someone. Its cool he did that but this assumes this is a sustainable means of making friends and it just isn’t.
US society is simply not structured in a way for adults to naturally make friends and it verges on being outright antagonistic to making close friends.
You can do nice things for people that aren’t expensive.
I think it’s cool this guy thought the theme park was such a great experience he had to share it with a stranger.
You can do nice things for people that aren’t expensive.
It is easy to say this but hard to execute. If you treat people to things that are gratis or cheap a lot of people will think you are a cheapskate or miserly. At best they’ll think you are poor which also isn’t great either, because even good people don’t want to feel like they’re potentially getting into a relationship that expects them to spend more money than the friend to go out and do things with them (unless, again, they’re rich and don’t care about spending a bunch of money).
If you dress nicely go out to hang with people but skimp out on spending money people will definitely think you are a miser or penny pincher. If you go out looking like a pauper or poor schlub people will generally just avoid you. I’ve done both.
There are other ways to interact which don’t imply treating people to things. Yes, in this case the person spent money on tickets, but he could have been on his way to any other activity and invited the person to join that. Or he could have offered the person to buy their own ticket and join.
“Hey, I’m on my way to play frisbee in the park, want to come?” – totally free.
Even if you aren’t treating people to stuff you still end up spending money. Just being out and about costs gas in the US because everything is so spread out. You get hungry and need to eat, there’s 10-20 bucks unless you’re lugging around a lunch box with you.
You want to socialize every once and a while it’ll add up. If you want to socialize consistently (which is key to establishing strong friendships or finding a significant other) you honestly need to be touching grass everyday and then it really adds up.
Also, pay attention to my words: Trying to maintain this is unsustainable in the US. I did not say it was impossible to do once in a blue moon, but that’s not really a meaningful social life. Seeing a person for an hour once every few weeks to play frisbee at the park (or equivalent activity, in my case board games) isn’t going to create a meaningful bond. Most people in my area make maybe a little over half what I make in pay at best and I can barely afford to socialize consistently. I do almost all my socializing at work and that shit doesn’t really count.
Sure, to a large extent existing in the US costs money, and you’d need to spend some on transportation or pay a premium to live in a walkable area. But beyond that there are still affordable activities you could do. Some things I’ve done in the US which only cost me the price of transportation:
Sure, a lot of the more affordable activities you’ll probably only be able to do once a week. You can do multiple activities. Sometimes you meet friends who invite you to other activities. Help, I have too many activities!
Stamets
HalfSalesman