In a nutshell inspired

I am subscribed to, among others, a ytube channel called Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell and their latest video inspired me to action.

The end result is that I joined a Discord group in my local city and together with those other of us who are local who watched that video and who have also joined, we seem to be forming a community based on the need to form friendships and to keep them.

I participated in my first event yesterday, a walk on Mount Royal. As I expected, I was of an age considerably above almost all of the others as within the Discord's Introduce-yourself section we provided our ages and most of the participants are between 19 and 25 years of age. It didn't seem to make much difference except for when conversations came a little to pop culture references or having to do with volume or number of life experiences.

Of the 15 of us only two were female of which one came with her SO. This did not seem to be an issue for either of them, though I'll never know for certain.

For the bulk of the walk I was with J, N and E, where N & E were the only couple, E being the woman. We learned quite a bit about each other though as time passed J tended to occupy most of the conversation space.

The US Open men's final between Norway's Casper Ruud and Spain's Carlos Alcaraz was scheduled to start at 16h which, if I was going to catch the start of it would meant I'd have to leave at around 15h, and though we were scheduled to start at 14h, we only started walking at 14h20. I was enjoying my time to quite a degree that though I checked the time as we approached 15h, it was clear my time would be much better spent with these new people. By the time I got home I had missed just the first set, so I was able to watch the rest. Alcaraz won in four sets.

We ended the walk, more or less, at the lookout where a group photo was taken. A few people were hinting that they wanted to continue on to do something else while I believe the majority were either ambivalent or as I was, ready to return home. A few asked, when would we meet again, and that is when I piped up that I have scheduled Monday evenings including the very next day (today). Having regular and frequent gatherings is one way of making/keeping friends so this is why I wanted something regular. A few people then mentioned that due to their schedule, Monday evenings wouldn't work; to which I replied that I had posted in the Mount Royal discord group that I was okay with Monday or Tuesday evenings and only one person (who wasn't at this walk) replied saying Mondays was better for her. Since I received no other reply I scheduled the Mondays. I suggested that they could organize MR walks themselves on other days of the week or weekend.

During this walk we spoke briefly about the international bicycle race that was happening in our city that day. There was a helicopter overhead filming it. If this Discord group survives into next year, I'll see about organizing an event to pick a spot along the route to watch the race and hang out as some of us were keen on the idea during the walk.

Anyhow, so far so good in terms of meeting people. Like the video stated, it could take weeks or months for solid friendships to form, and given our age differences I haven't too high a hope for forming any meaningful friendships. If, however, my organizing of these weekly walks allows for two or three twenty-something people to become close friends with each other; this will have just as meaningful an effect while I get a weekly contact with them on Mondays.