Five ways to build community as an introvert.

The club sucks but so does staying in forever.

As a teenager, one of my friends threw a murder mystery party annually for her birthday. We’d be assigned characters and all get together in costume, eat food, and play pretend. Those days were always delightful, and I’m gratified to see that halfway across the world strangers are getting together to do the same thing: in China, some people are playing games of what they have come to call jubensha. I think jubensha demonstrates how easy it is to find somebody in real life who wants to participate in the same way as you – somebody intense, who wants homework for their hobby, and

One article I have been reading[1] told me about people using tiktok and youtube to be cosy and control a cosy world: you collect cups because you don’t actually want a ‘new’ interest, you want to identify yourself within a tribe or aesthetic and have ‘more’ of this thing that you know you like. That’s not a new phenomenon, it’s been how we are as a species or society for decades, if not centuries[2] and it makes a certain amount of sense that we are all coalescing around our comfort zones now that it’s socially and economically possible. Socialising is often outside our comfort zones, but it should still be enjoyable.

I hate all sports; I do not follow a team. I do not want to shout at you across a bar, and regularly complain about my busy, expensive life. This article is one for those of you who recognise the need to socialise and entirely lack the will or interest to do those which we typically assume are the prerequisites of the extracurricular activity.

Find a trade show

The London Pen Show (which I attended last year) was not prohibitively expensive and was a great time at which I got to know my own (indoors, practiced alone) hobby better and met other people interested in the same thing. As somebody who works next door to a space at which trade shows are regularly held, I can assure you that they have them for everything: interior design, Lolita fashion, doll collecting, cocktail making. Although the trade show tends to be aimed at the professional, they are in fact accessible to anyone for any reason (usually – if your interest is guns you might need a friend to put you on the guest list) and you can expect to see cool historic objects or manufacturing processes, up-to-the-minute tech demonstrations and independent or small sellers in amongst the more recognisable brands – and, depending on your area of interest, perhaps free samples or swag like branded biros.

The good thing about this as a setting is that it’s the generally expected behaviour that you mill around and don’t necessarily interact with people, so it’s great if you’re not confident – you simply look aloof and not ready to part with your money for just anything. Worst case scenario is you’ll grow your knowledge; best case scenario is you’ll get chatting with a stall owner and fill up your social battery with no obligation to ever meet them again.

Corral people you already like together

Once you accept that doing something alone is still doing something you’d enjoy, the stakes are much lower for organising things. Develop an organic friend group by saying “I am going to X event on Y day, come if you want” to your old uni friends, work colleagues, former housemates and people you’d like to know better. This could be something as extravagant as going to a gig or as frivolous as going to a cat café – give people all the information required and the worst that can happen is you saw somebody from that band you like do a half-baked DJ set or the Hungarian silent movie you were curious about. Yes, at least 1/3 of the people who said they’d come will bail at the last minute, and another 1/3 of people will think you’re weird, but the people who do come are a friend you have something in common with, and you can do something like that again. You might have a strange time but you won’t have a bad time.

Attend lectures

There used to be a joke that the best place to meet single women was a class on motor mechanics, and therefore if you were looking for a single man that’s where he’d be. I can’t speak to the veracity of this old wives’ tale, but I can say that you’ll have a good time listening to somebody talk about something they care about. This might be a little harder to arrange outside London, where we have Chatham House, Gresham College, Conway Hall and all manner of specialist groups who arrange events (I myself am partial to the more bookish variety), but in Leicester I used to go see visiting lecturers at the Y and people like Seed Talks host lectures in venues all across the UK – I’m pretty sure most towns will have them at least sometimes, whether that’s at the local college or private school after-hours, in a sympathetic church, or in your local historic building (somebody famous came from your shithole town, I promise – I can name more than one historically significant figure from Nowheresville Leicestershire where I went to school)[3]. Think about where they host Weight Watchers and the Zumba class your Aunt Linda goes to, and see what else is on there. Learn about flower-arranging from an overly brisk pensioner.

I am an evangelist for the evening lecture and truly believe this is what introverts should be doing for fun. You don’t have to make three pages of notes every time like me (where do you think these essays come from?) and generally you will be offered a mediocre glass of warm wine you can try to awkwardly chat with afterwards.

Frequent decrepit businesses

Look I feel a little bad calling my favourite cinema decrepit, but there’s no way on god’s green earth it would be surviving if the man whose hobby it is had not been adopted by a much younger man with some level of business savvy. There is surely something like this near you: perhaps a greasy spoon that nobody goes to since Gregg’s opened up in town, or maybe the Chinese where the owner’s kids moved to the city and they’re just slowly petering along until they retire so it hasn’t been redecorated in living memory. Take your other hobbies – your knitting, your journal, your homework – to these places instead of a shiny chain and give them a chance to learn your rhythms. Chat to the projectionist / Vietnamese coffee maker / hotel bartender for a few minutes at the interval, but fundamentally take the chance to focus on your companionable almost-solitude.[4]

Join A Campaign

Save a historical building! Don’t build a quarry on that green-belt land! Get the primary school better playground facilities! Any volunteer campaign will be glad to have your skills, whether it’s website-making or yarn-bombing, and you won’t have to turn up very often. Local campaigning doesn’t have to be NIMBYish, so consider reframing it positively and coming together with people you will then nod to in the big Tesco but are so different from you that they won’t expect you to sit with them if you see them in the pub.

Do-gooding is a hobby that takes time, and much of that time is spent alone doing things like writing letters to your MP or applying for Lottery funding. It is fundamentally worth your time because you get to decide what cause matters to you[5] so kick up a fuss about something and make your mark on the world… quietly.

On This Topic:

• I don’t know about jubensha, but these guys do. I do know that I’d probably go if it happened in the UK (after I finish my PhD and have time)
• Sally Rooney wrote a whole ass book about the benefits of small-town lectures.
• Please, I implore you, follow House Geshtu’s journey to their new style of pen. This is entirely self-interested because I tried it at the aforementioned pen show and now desperately want one. Once a month I check their website even though I’m on their mailing list. Please, I loved it so much.

To-Do:

• Plan packing / laundry cycle for Guernsey then Yorkshire (I’m doing short, local hols hot on the heels of each other this year)
• Big book order for work
• FINISH DAFFODIL DAYS

Today’s Culture:

• Finally buying a backpack, because my hunch is getting worse and I would like to age into an elegant swan not Nosferatu. If anybody is looking to buy me a gift (or treat themselves) I would recommend this upgrade from what I actually bought.
• NEW BRANDON FLOWERS SOLO ALBUM.
• When the world is bad I watch old Crufts. Nobody can ever best my homie Eric and I want a dog he sired so badly I might actually ring The Kennel Club and make it happen.

[1] I looked through my entire ‘read’ history and it must have linked out because I can’t find it. This video sparks the same questions, I think. This one is related too, IIRC.

[2] We are not unpacking the concept of culture and subculture here.

[3] I love semi-obscure historical figures. The two from my shitty not-hometown (That is not my place, I don’t claim it) are a Bible translator who got cut up for heresy and thrown in the local river and the guy who invented the jet engine. Please tell me which strange historical figure your local school was named after.

[4] This tip works just as well with any small business, but I want you to think outside the box and go to the dustiest glass-blowing studio you can find.

[5] Unless you’re a TERF or hate immigrants, in which case please address your letters to the shredder and continue getting riled up and having nobody to talk to about it.