How do you meet people - make friends when you are older than 35

[C-3PO]

This thread is losing excellence.
Please remain excellent to all.

[mrcharly-YHT]

<thread deviation> I've thought of myself as a generally 'aware and condemning racism' sort of chap, but have had a wake up call recently, due to the newest member of the family being part Chinese. My Son and her are trying to find a flat/house and one of her chief concerns is that the area they move to will accept someone 'who looks like her'. It never occurred to me that this would be an issue in this day and age. So, a wake up call, and maybe a reminder to all of us privileged white folks to not be so flippant.

Back to the original question:
I'm not sure being over 35 changes this much. Young people also struggle with meeting and making friends. My answer would be to try special interest clubs (cycling, walking, book reading, whatever, just pick things you are interested in). It has always worked for me. As a painfully shy young man I found great friends in a walking club in Australia; we'd go walking on weekends, meet up for meals out during the week. Big advantage of joining a special interest club is that you immediately have something in common to talk about, which avoids all that awkward stilted conversation thing that takes place between complete strangers.

[T42]

<thread deviation> I've thought of myself as a generally 'aware and condemning racism' sort of chap, but have had a wake up call recently, due to the newest member of the family being part Chinese. My Son and her are trying to find a flat/house and one of her chief concerns is that the area they move to will accept someone 'who looks like her'. It never occurred to me that this would be an issue in this day and age. So, a wake up call, and maybe a reminder to all of us privileged white folks to not be so flippant.

When we moved to Stuttgart in the late 70's every housing advert I enquired about was "sorry, already taken" until I got a Stuttgarter colleague to call on my behalf.  Got it in one. We went to see the landlord together. I could see the mealy-mouthed old git was blenching at the idea of renting to an Ausländer but he couldn't say anything without admitting he was a racist bastard.

[Gattopardo]

Am sorry, I caused the confusion and used the wrong term.  Don't want to cause an argument.

Am in France near Paris and the area where I am has, what I believe to be afro French community.  Going in to Paris for the drinks group is very white, couple of asians and a couple of people from India. 

Am not in a great place as I am alone here and occasionally fancy a beer in company.  Am on anti depressants, suffer anxiety and have ADHD.  So I can overcompensate for being shy for being quite boombastic.  Added ADHD saying things that I find funny, also can get peoples backs up.  An example was discussing with a South American guy who we ended up talking about politics and that Corbyn was a che guvaras level of murderer. Later discussions on a discord group about Elon musk really set him off and seems that wishing people an Eid Mubarak, causes people to use star of david and Israel flag emoticons and my reaction of don't think that is appropriate.  So got booted off that discord. 

The group is also appears to be LBGTQ friendly as they went to Pride, but one person at the bar might have been trans, and the people were quite judgemental.

Think that it hurt that people think and comment that I only went some where to hook up.  When I first started attending I would meet up with others newbies that were anxious to join a group.  As I have been there and know what it is like. 

Reality is that I don't want to do much and spend far too much time in bed avoiding people.  Maybe with the covid wave it is a good thing.

Also that the situation and life I have led is unbelievable.

EDIT: Seem I rejoined the discord group and was quite interesting.  The south american guy, whom has his own set of issues (adhd- depression) really took a disliking to me, as he called me a know it all.  Seems know the difference between Corbyn and the left of south america makes me. Never mind my anti elon Musk stand.  The worst bit is the term that we are accepting because we are young.  No you are arseholes as you pick on the different.  Can't get over the fact a trans person did turn up and spent a bit of time to guage the room.  Their french was good enough to judge condescending comments made against them.  Fits in with the comments of me being unkempt as I didn't shave nor the sartorial elegance of not matching or what ever.