We get on the topic of making friends in Austin. Both of the strangers (not me and Alexandra) say it’s hard to make friends in Austin. For the record, Alexandra and I met randomly at an event and have forged a friendship out of that, emailing regularly and meeting up every so often. She’s GREAT at keeping in touch. I don’t think she finds it hard to make friends, and I’ve often said Austin makes it easy to make friends. More on that in a minute.

So we started talking about HOW you make friends, and Alexandra declares that there are three groups of people who find it easy to make friends: people who are into live music, people who are into sports, and people who are hippie-ish or granola-y. I think this over. When I moved back to Austin (I’m a native but was away for school), I immediately sought out sports leagues, not only because I love sports, but also because I figured it’d be a great way to make friends (thank you, Austin Sports & Social Club, and I discuss this more here). I also went out quite a bit, but not to listen live music. And while I shop at Wheatsville, only eat free-range meat, recycle, and have a very active compost at the house, I don’t really consider myself a hippie. Nonetheless, I apparently had 1/3 of the advantages for making friends.

But I don’t think it’s just about what activities you do. It’s about the intention you approach anything in your life with. I moved home and said, “I have to make new friends now.” I didn’t hang out with my high school friends, and I looked at every event where there’d be new people as a chance to make friends. Always open-minded and open-hearted. It certainly wasn’t an immediate process, but I’m picky and I still found an amazing group of friends that continues to grow and expand to this day. I always credited my ability to find awesome new friends to Austin itself, for having a young, intelligent, diverse population of laid-back people. But if this isn’t true for 2/4 girls in the coffeeshop, where’s the disconnect?

So I’m curious … how did you make friends in Austin? If you’re from somewhere else or lived somewhere else, was it easier or harder to make friends? Where do you think we fall on the Easiness-of-Making-Friends Scale?

I’ve tried to explain Crossfit before and never been able to. I tried that Women’s-Only workout and it was fun; but I still couldn’t eloquently explain. So I’ll let my friend opening the Crossfit Austin gym do the talking:

These three pieces of explanation from the website sum Crossfit up the best:

• “Crossfit consists of short, intense workouts involving total body (compound) movements and constant variation.”

• ” … strength and conditioning system that is built on constantly varied, if not randomized, functional movements executed at high intensity. Our goal is to increase work capacity over broad time and modal domains. We train for efficiency and optimal performance in each of ten recognized fitness domains: Cardiovascular and Respiratory Endurance, Stamina, Strength, Flexibility, Power, Speed, Coordination, Agility, Balance, and Accuracy.”

• “You will be trained in many fundamental functional movements.  You will participate in constantly changing workouts that combine body weight exercises, weightlifting, and other high-intensity drills that integrate cardio and strength challenges at the appropriate level.”

Basically, it’s a quick, tough workout designed to challenge different muscle groups with relatively simple exercises. The program is run by a Workout of the Day – WOD. You can do it solo or with the group, and until their gym opens, the fellas of Crossfit Austin (both attractive and single, BTW) are offering free workouts Monday through Friday (some mornings, some evenings) at Town Lake (under the bridge on S. First, just South of Town Lake, meet by the water fountains).

Schedule

Tonight, 7-9:30pm @ Six Lounge (4th & Colorado)

Tomorrow: Texas Exes Austin Young Alumni Group Happy Hour

Wednesday, October 15 from 5-8pm at Sherlock’s Baker Street Pub (9012 Research Blvd)

Come with friends to meet new people and hang out with fellow Longhorn fans! There will be drink specials and a live performance by LC Rocks, the 80s cover band, at 9:30. Everyone is welcome – Texas Exes members, non-members, and guests.
Click here for more information and to see who’s going.

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Well, perhaps an online community of runners? Daily Mile is a training website started by a cool local guy for logging workouts, talking about workouts, interacting with other runners, posting messages and encouragement, and more. It’s kind of amazing: a few weeks ago a friend pointed me to this site and there was a handful of users actively posting; now, it’s full of people talking, sharing, exploring, questioning, answering. It’s awesome! And it’s all from an Austin dude.

So no events. Go run. And then Rlog about it. Rog about it? Tlog about it? Trog about it? Training Log! Trog! Trog about it!

Nevertheless, I did find out about ultimate frisbee. Apparently, there are pick-up games at Zilker every Monday and Friday night, starting around 6pm. I obviously have never been, so I can’t vouch for it, but there you go if you feel like playing some Ultimate.

Also, fencing is another thing I know nothing about. Not just the sport of fencing, but the act of building a fence. Again nevertheless, I found out about that as well. My dad and I, aided at various times by friends, built a fence. And we have Home Depot to thank for that, with their 8-foot panels of French Gothic Spaced Pickets. All we had to do was set some posts in concrete and screw the fences on! (I’m being a little sarcastic, it’s harder than it sounds, but overall not too difficult in the scheme of things) But now everytime I look at my fence, I feel a little bit proud. My point is, in the theme of doing things you don’t normally do, maybe you can hit the Home Depot and build something yourself too!

Pangaea is an interesting club to me … I’ve only been to their grand opening (open bar …) and a few hosted events there, so I’ve never witnessed it in its regular-weekend glory. Does it have regular-weekend glory? It was quite controversial when it showed up on the Austin scene, mainly because detractors argued that Austin didn’t need or wasn’t ready for a hoity-toity place with a velvet rope, sparklers in their bottle service, and cage dancers. Of course, those detractors failed to realize that outside of need and readiness lie want and novelty, so Pangaea has so far been successful–depending on how you define success.

I prefer cheaper drinks and friendlier people, but a dressed-up night out at Pangaea isn’t unappealing either. And the time frame of this NetParty–6:00 to 10:00pm–makes it a nice tweener time that could stay happy hour or turn into a night on the town … with new friends, natch! FYI, the half-price drinks and free apps are only until 8pm.

I’m not sure when they close the RSVP, but you have to RSVP to get in free. There’s a $25 charge at the door (or so they say … I can’t imagine anyone charging $25 for a HAPPY HOUR).

AND:

Tribeza is also hosting a happy hour at Lambert’s with free apps and live music. There will be drinks too, but no telling if they’re free or not.

So, there’s a friend of mine who started the meetup.com volleyball group (you can access it through atxvb.com too … he’s a web developer). Normally I would think he’s awesome for starting something like that, but I must admit that I’m a little snobby/territorial about playing volleyball at Zilker. See, I started going out there last year, and it’s where I met a bunch of the people I now consider my closest friends. And I didn’t use a meetup group! We just met! Naturally!

Which, of course, is some silly logic. I should be glad that other people are getting a shortcut to making friends, I should be proud of my friend for starting something that helps other people make friends, I make friends from the group, and so on. I just don’t want these people to think I made my friends off the internet … because I didn’t! But what’s so wrong with that? After all, aren’t I encouraging readers of my blog to participate in things I tell them to–through the internet–and therefore make friends ostensibly from the internet?

And the funny thing is, I like a lot of the people from the meetup group. And if I didn’t already go to Zilker, I would be THRILLED to find the meetup group, I would join, and I would start going to Zilker! It’s just that sense of wanting everyone to know that I was there first…

However, you should ignore my elitist, proprietary ramblings and come out to Zilker tonight to play some sand volleyball with some cool people. Myself excluded, as I have just demonstrated that I am not, in fact, cool.

Moving back, I made it a goal to make a lot of friends. The only way I knew to do that was to join teams and get active, so I joined a football team and started going to a run club. There I made friends, some that stuck, some that didn’t. I went with old friends/acquaintances from my high school to play volleyball–a sport I never cared for or wanted to learn to play–and now play 2-3 days a week! Right now I play on four sports teams: a basketball team, a football team, and two volleyball teams (with mostly the same people–one is coed and one isn’t).

The point is that I’ve made awesome friends really quickly, and I have sports to blame/thank for that. Do other cities have Austin Sports & Social leagues? Because that has been instrumental in me finding friends. That and Zilker Park’s sand volleyball courts! Saturday mornings, starting at 10 am going as long as we last … VOLLEYBALL!