The thing about life after college or university that people actually fail to mention is that it is actually harder to meet new people since you arent forced into social situation where you can make friends. In college you’ll be forced into a class, a faculty, or wherever the students hang out. When you finish, theres this void, and its not that easy to overcome if youre just so used to having people around and not making much effort to make friends. Sure you might have a close knit group of friends, but im talking about new people to meet. In this article I’ll try to detail my experiences regarding these options.
Classes
Last year a buddy and i went for dance classes. Yeah you read that right. We gained an interest going to raves and clubs and thought that it’ll be a nice hobby to have. I personally think that everyone needs a skill besides work to learn, be it cooking, guitar or anything you like. So we found a place in Setapak that had a pretty nice group of people. We took Street Jazz classes and the way it worked was that if you miss one class, you can simply replace it by attending a another of the same genre, which my personal favourite was Hip Hop. The Street Jazz teacher was pretty nice (and hot af), but Street Jazz turned out to be a bit feminine for us. The class was filled with girls aged somewhere between 18 to 24 or so. We were the only 2 guys there. Pretty sure they thought we were gay for a time before i said something to clear it up. Crowd was nice but it was a bit hard for me to talk to people because of the inherent shyness. All cute girls weh. Maluu.. Not that successful but was pretty fun nonetheless.
Internet groups
As a long time Reddit user, one day i decided to join an /r/Malaysia meetup to try to meet like minded people. Doesn’t seem too bad. It was at Havana Changkat, which i have been to before. So i PMed the person organizing, asked for his number and came a bit late. Turns out the organizer was an old schoolmate and a few other familiar faces were there as well. Over time i started to befriend the other Reddit users and joined the /r/Malaysia whatsapp group. We have a good time joking around on whatsapp most days and with a bunch of people in the group, whenever I’m bored or lonely i just hit up the group. Our next meetups after that consists of making fun of anything from politics to dark humor over a few games of Cards Against Humanity. On nights i want to go out but no plan i just ask the group “Who’s out?”, then can probably go kacau whoever i can. Awesome people. I’d consider that a success.
Couchsurfing
Second day of my Penang trip i decided to join in a Couch Surfing meetup there. So as usual i get to the area a bit earlier and just get a hostel there. This time i happened to get a dorm bed and the only other person in the dorm was an exchange student from Taiwan. She told me that her friends just left that day but she’ll be in Penang for another 2 days, so i invited her to join me in the meetup to find other travellers to hang out with. There was actually more people in the meetup than i expected. It was a very interesting place to learn and discuss about travelling. I really havent done it that much in recent memory, but am planning to in the next year or so. Anything i was thinking of, i could bounce it off anybody there for their opinion and they would share interesting experiences as well. This success got me thinking if i should stay in Penang another day or two…
Bars
In Malaysia, on average. people aren’t really as friendly as to talk to total strangers at the bar. Why? Probably just our culture. But if you want, you can do it. Just be the one to start the conversation. Something like a hello would do. Honestly though the last time i tried this, the response was, “You’re not trying to sell me anything are you?”, which is pretty funny. Don’t let it hold you down though, after 5 mins we were already talking about life aspirations.
Tinder
So I’ve been using Tinder for a while now. Unfortunately I’m one of those people who are just on there to ‘cuci mata’ only, most of the time. If you don’t know Tinder, its an app that gives you a list of profiles where you swipe left or right depending if you’re interested or not. If he/she swipes right on you as well, you’ve got a match and can start chatting. Since it is a dating app, I wouldnt be too detailed as it could be a bit personal but ill share my general thoughts on it. Like i said, I rarely actually meet up any of my matches, but the ones that i do meet up, i wouldn’t consider a success. It really depends on who you meet, really. It’s a good place to meet people for dates. Just don’t be one of those people who go ‘Just here for friends’ or whatever, because, lets face it, if you have a boyfriend and am on Tinder and looking at guys, we really aren’t being too honest with ourselves are we? Anyways, the trick to Tinder, for guys, is to not be too choosy. Try to swipe right by default, give it a chance, they might be fun. Hell, most guys just swipe right on everyone and clean up the matches later. For girls, a lot of guys will probably swipe right so its probably more logical to be a bit more choosy. Good luck on this one. Hope you have better luck than i did. I know a lot of people who did.
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