Seriously though the only places I've seen any kind of thriving community are invite-only private torrent tracker sites.
I have an IRL friend who always goes like "oh, sorry, its invite-only torrent (￣y▽,￣)╭ "
That's lame, you're only supposed to be inviting people you really know IRL anyway... Weak excuse from your friend, if you're willing to seed.
I met someone on Reddit about 5 years ago whilst talking about making a smart mirror for fun. Ended up not making the mirror but did end up in a relationship from it. Was random, I had never exchanged dm's with anyone before that.
Whatever you do, steer clear of meetup.com - all of their social activities on there now are scientologists thinly veiling their seminars as get-togethers.
I've gone to local meetups that were cool, but it seems like most of the events on there now cost money, and are hosted by some life coach or guru.
That's not true everywhere, my city has a pretty good meetup scene for various hobbies. However the amount of people who sell their useless courses as "meetup, but I will ask for a 20€ fee from everyone" or shady "we will talk about investing/crypto..." groups has gone up.
Videogames.
I want a serious answer, how should I find people online to talk to about anything really other than politics?
You don't.
You don't find people online (or IRL) waiting for strangers to start a discussion on some random topic you feel like talking about. Because people, unlike trolls, are busy with their live.
What you can find is people willing to discuss with someone they find interesting or, with any luck, intriguing on whatever topic you both are interested in.
So, what are you interested in? Have you any hobbies, interests, passions? Find small communities around those topics you're interested in, and start posting. Do the work to show you're there and that, maybe, you're worth discussing with.
play an MMO game. plenty of ways to break into friend groups there.
I posted on lemmy if anyone wanted to play games with me. Someone answered and we talk everyday since then, on most days we spend hours on video calls. Just try posting on whatever you use, you might find people you like.
Check out https://slowly.app/ - its a penpall service that simulates snail mail which makes for great connections! You can get a random pall or choose one explicitly and the community there is really wholesome.
In their terms of service, they share data with ad companies and marketers. But I can't copy paste it here because JavaScript
Edit: grammar
I just quickly read through them, and it just sounded like the usual "we run as here". Could you specify it a bit? Or take a screenshot of the relevant part?
You might be looking for this perhaps?
I can't copy and paste the text from my phone, but under Privacy Policy > 4. When and with whom do we share your personal information?, it says the following in the first paragraph:
Vendors, Consultants, and Other Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your data with third-party vendors, service providers, contractors, or agents ('third parties') who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work.
(Not verbatim...) It goes on to say the contracts are designed to safeguard personal information and can't use any personal information without their permission. Third parties will not share personal information except with them and third parties commit to data protection they hold on their behalf and to retain it for the period they have been instructed.
Third parties information may be shared with:
Additionally:
i'm assuming it's this part: 
Unfortunate :(
Although, this still reads like "standard" stuff like using google analytics or a Facebook plugin. To me, this does not seem to be any worse than most mainstream sites.
Of course, modern internet sucks balls, don't get me wrong.
Look for sections about sharing data. In an attempt to copy paste it seems I banned JS from that site which made it fail to load the body content entirely.
Love yourself and be content in being alone, get to know the real you. When you do that, you will find the right people. It will be instinctual.
No offense, but "be content in being alone" is not a good answer to "how do I meet new people for a chill time"
None taken. I'm advocating for introspection, as in, why did they come here and ask the question in the first place? Why not just seek out a like-minded community? So, how can one possibly get directions from another when they don't know where they want to go? At that point, any direction is valid.
Fair point.
Maybe I feel like this because I've been in the same situation before, where it felt like I had exhausted all social options in my comfort zone. Asking random strangers is nice sometimes, because it gives you perspective and feedback from people who are out of your own bubble. Or, at least, a way to vent your frustration without risking to alienate your friends.
Look into your communities events pages or whatever it'll be called and look for things that might be your interest adjacent. Go to community centers and look at their boards. Find a thing you're vaguely interested in ago go. Then meet people there who can either tell you about other things that you might be interested in or continue what you're doing. Churches often have good community boards too, depends on the church. Some are far less evangelical than others, your results may vary.
Try bellawhiskey.ca/trollegle. It's a silly little chat site. Will not necessarily be alive when you join, but there are a few regular visitors. I would recommend to avoid speaking to _ though.
It's pleasantly surprising to see it getting mentioned it at all. Loved the servers when they were Omegle chatoorms, and it's a bit sad to see it sort of die out with the death of Omegle. But yeah, the people there are generally nice.
Also, since I mentioned Omegle: I do not recommend any Omegle clones, as they often have an account system in place, which sort of ruins the whole anonymity stuff and also leaves to some stigma to those who do not want to use the account system. Not to mention that these sites generally attracts horny creeps, and finding a good chat partner is thusly hard.
Meeting people is much possible in the real world.
I don't have an answer about online methods... I went through the phase of how to meet people as well, and eventually decided to join / try out some group activities. I did some rookie dragon boating, table tennis, stand up paddle, and eventually met my forever spouse as she taught me scuba diving. PS: other than the scuba diving, those were all free activities for beginners. Good luck
For me WebFishing. Some time ago I played VRchat.
Discord is also good but lack of 3d avatars just doesn't provide the feeling of socialisation.
thinked
You don’ thunk hard
A couple years ago I had my discord nametag as my Mario Kart Wii nickname, zheg#someNumbers, random people added me and then talked with them while playing. Those were good ol' days.
I hear Lemmy is pretty good as a sort of forum, maybe you've heard of it?
But more seriously, I've found that social media platforms (even the fediverse ones) tend to limit connections to surface-level. I personally wouldn't rely on them to find people to talk to. But if you're looking for communities who share similar interests, it's very good at that. If you're looking for individuals, the next best thing is sliding into someone's DMs to have a more focused one-on-one conversation. I'd recommend against doing that without some other interaction first (it looks scammy).
In case you want to chat, my DMs are open.
I meet tons of people on Discord.
Hey people have dated and married over gaming chats before. I knew someone in college he met his then about to engage fiance. I lost contact after graduation though
What things are you interested in? Video games, ttrpgs, anime, cinema, woodworking, sports, fast cars, sneakers, programming, yoga, wines, bdsm, books, drawing, dogs, veganism, religion, music, hiking?
Whatever the answer is, find a community for it or adjacent to it. On Lemmy, Reddit, Discord, Matrix, or some obscure forum.
And then, the last step, is engage with that community.
VRChat is an option. Takes effort to make your way to the cool people tho.
For me, what worked best has been smaller sites/communities! Specifically art/roleplay spaces (with the caveat these spaces also have a lot of drama and people who live for said drama) and virtual pet sites somehow lol. But I also feel like people online just aren't as interested in talking or having actual conversations as much as they used to, so it's less about looking in specific places and more about just... Getting lucky and finding someone on your same wavelength I suppose.
Gaming can be another way to meet people too. Can't speak from experience there, but my brother was super involved in the Hearts of Iron IV modding community for years and made friends through it!
You make bids for connection and continue the ones that are reciprocated.
No disrespect, but I laughed when I read your comment.
That is exactly what I am asking, Where do I do that?
🌹
Make comments that leave room for discussion, ask people what they think about things, continue conversations that start, etc. Be open.
I'm not sure this is a good place to cultivate conversation but it's certainly possible.
We could easily make some sort of Lemmy instance where lonely people could find friendship and love, right? Maybe it's been created already? I met my now wife online (about a decade ago) so don't lose hope, you never know what tomorrow holds!
What is it that you want to talk about? There's plenty about programming, math, and stuff like that. Maybe other stuff too, but that's the stuff I'm into. Hacker News is definitely overrated and always has been though.
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
