Someone was saying that lots of people feel lonely and miss in-person contact, but few try to build communities. This person was saying something important, and I don't want to diminish their claim. What I will say is that I don't know how to do that.
I don't know how to meet people. Sometimes I go to event with the intent of talking with strangers, but I never do. I never make connection, and end up alone. And like, I can be bold! When I have a clear idea of what to do, I do it, no matter if I need to talk to someone or even throw a stink in public. I am capable of doing it, I know that. I don't know how to meet people.
I don't know how to maintain communities. Frankly, it feels immoral for me to maintain a community, because if people depend on me and I don't show up (which I often do, for myriads of reasons), then I have let down everyone. That's part of why I had to abandon the notion of moral responsibility: if moral responsibility exist, then I am guilty, but that guilt does not provide me with a clear way forward, so I have to ignore it, lest I get paralysed. In my experience, guilt motivate action when there is a clear way forward and a precise set of action I need to do,1 otherwise it just spiral.
It's like, people seem to have an intuitive understanding of the step involved with meeting people, and I don't. I feel that way about a lot of things, cleaning for instance. I need to think to solve these problems, and my solutions are rarely good. There is so many gaps I don't know how to fill, and I stay stuck until the gap is filled. And the "don't sweat the small stuff" doesn't work because it's not small stuff. It's like, how to maintain a conversation.
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and that's assuming the clear way forward is the right thing to do. Guilt sometimes push me toward action that would cause more problem, like trying to apologize to someone who doesn't want it. I had to learn to ignore that guilt.
Two months ago, I received a flyer for a community meeting about combatting energy poverty in my city. Like the OP, I have struggled to connect with my local community since moving here. And while I didn't need these services myself, I wanted to see what was happening.
At the meeting, I learned that they were building a task force to improve people's homes by installing insulating tape on doors, hanging up curtains, and placing radiator fans. These small improvements can have a noticeable impact on someone's heating bill. And there was money from our city council to pay for some of this. It also turned out that the task force didn't exist yet, and they were looking for volunteers. So I raised my hand.
Since then, I've had multiple meetings with this task force about how to set things up. We have a location, but we are waiting for approval from the city council to renovate it into a workshop. We needed a sign-up form, so I made one in Figma. We also need a website, so I'm currently building one. And now we're setting up meetings with our first two clients.
Volunteering isn't for everyone, but it is more flexible than people realize. You donate your time and effort where you can, and people in the organization know you won't be as reliable as an FTE and plan accordingly. And what you get in return is new skills, new connections, and something to do with your time.