Can I just pay someone with real event planning and social skills to just include me in whatever they’re doing? It would be way better for my mental health than therapy.
Edit: not even just for me personally either. Like as a community thing. I pay my portion and the person planning all this uses it to rent a space and pay for catering or whatever and keeps a list of all of us and tries to get us all out of the house.
I have a friend that does this for me. I don’t pay them but it does work surprisingly well. I’m grateful that they’re understanding about my social anxiety issues and allow me to reject some of their invites without cutting me out in the future.
Find a Mormon. They will be ecstatic to do this for free. Of course all the social events will be church related and they will certainly try their best to convert you… But harassing people into participating is what they’re best at.
My brother in Christ, that is just a club! You pay dues to belong and everyone elects the few most organized and functional people to plan events that everyone can enjoy. You can even kick it up a notch and make it a civil organization so that you’re accomplishing good works while hanging out with likeminded people. Society used to be full of such organizations, and it’s time we brought them back.
They would still have to go to the club though, and generate the interest / intent by themselves.
I think the service provided should be more like a PA: they call you Friday at 5pm, ask what you’re doing, suggest a couple of activities, and once there, actually make an effort to introduce you to people, suggest common activities, take care of the first hour of awkward conversation so people can get to know each other etc.
$5 says this already exists in Japan.
I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if it did, and Japan would be a likely culprit.
Tech has the right of what I was getting at though. I’ve been a member of several organizations and every one has made an attempt to turn me out to events. Most recently I’ve been working with a local Democratic Socialists of America chapter which got me out for canvassing and socials, which lead to protests and neighborhood cleanups, and now includes mutual aid events and tabletop gaming. All of this happened after I was laid off and moved half way across the country. Not all organizations are the same, but a good one can practically create a whole social life from thin air.
I think what may be implied by OPs comment:
The other members of the club will harass you to come to events. Your dues are your indirect way of paying for your social event harassment (ha!).
As a friend of a club member, I often don’t want to go but am cajoled, and then I’m glad I went. It’s awesome. Highly recommend.
This exactly.
Where do I apply? Easy money.
Join a tabletop gaming club or group. I mean the obvious choice would be to join a club in general, but sounds like your challenge is finding the reason to go out or what activity to do. My suggestion is, through games you can meet and interact with a lot of people and some of these groups are operating in clubs, so have a look and see what’s around your area. It could be anything from DnD to regular card games or any other board game you can think of.
This is the solution, and the place to start is your local comic shop if you have one. Almost all of them run gaming clubs in the back.
Seems like Friends with extra steps 👀
This need is probably something you can discuss with your therapist.
Where you at, fool
I do basically that for free. Like others said, join a club!
A pay-for-friend? Yeah you can totally do it! I don’t know about a real event planner but use the social meeting apps and throw some money at people. See what happens. Sounds to me like an interesting social experiment too. Good luck!
Pay yourself.
Get an old fashioned wall calendar and write in all the social events you can attend each month. Make a check mark on the ones you actually go to. At the end of the year count them up and give yourself $10.00 for each one attended.
I think those are called life coaches.
