Do your hobbies/interests help you bond with people?

[artzcat]

Just curious how the avenites bond with people. Maybe it will convince me to explore some new hobbies and connect with humans.

 

feel free to comment with any specific details of your hobbies or interests 

[Lichley]

You can have all of the hobbies in the world, but if you struggle to socially interact with the person in the first place then you can never bring any of those topics up, and so you can never bond with someone over them. 

[TheAP]

Not really, to be honest. Because most of my interests just involve thinking of things in my head, so it's hard to discuss them with other people. I'm not really in any fandoms, nor do I really have any active hobbies. I'm not afraid to tell people what my interests are, but actually bonding with someone over my interests is harder.

[artzcat]

10 minutes ago, TheAP said:

Not really, to be honest. Because most of my interests just involve thinking of things in my head, so it's hard to discuss them with other people. I'm not really in any fandoms, nor do I really have any active hobbies. I'm not afraid to tell people what my interests are, but actually bonding with someone over my interests is harder.

That is similar how I am. I like art but I don't have any hobbies unless having a deep/interesting conversation counts.

[banoffeepie]

Difficult one for me to answer. I think if I had hobbies and interests, that required interaction I would bond with people. But I have none. Whenever I mix with people it goes well.

I just don't like mixing. It's a lot of effort.

Ironically work is the one activity which always provides friends for me it seems. I guess because I have to work.

 

So my answers are going to reflect that.

[Diamond Ace of Hearts]

I feel like my interests are too varied. Make a Venn diagram of my interests and I'll be the only person in a lot of the intersections. Who else is going to listen to 80s art pop on the way to go play Dungeons and Dragons while using WhatsApp to arrange a soccer game and reading a book on the socio-economic effects of the 2008 global financial crisis?

 

I can try to bond over any of those things individually but it's not enough for a meaningful connection, is it?

[Homer]

I think that hobbies and interests are some of the most common "bonding ingredients". It's a nice way to start things off lightheartedly - there's already something you have in common and that you can talk about to break the ice, so there's no "need" to open up personally all too quickly.

 

Most of my friendships initially started by talking about shared interests.

[Gloomy]

No. My hobbies are all things I either do at home or can still do by myself if I leave the house.

[Grumpy Alien]

I don't really have any interests...

[artzcat]

Thanks for the responses! I honestly don't have any "real" hobbies/interests, but I feel like most people bond over those things so I thought maybe I'm weird for being that way or I'm doing something wrong. 

[Snao Cone]

I'm a very odd person who has a hard time bonding with people over a shared interest because I worry that the friendship will be one-dimensional.

[Grumpy Alien]

3 hours ago, artzcat said:

Thanks for the responses! I honestly don't have any "real" hobbies/interests, but I feel like most people bond over those things so I thought maybe I'm weird for being that way or I'm doing something wrong. 

I usually bond with people over similar senses of humor and personality.

[iff]

I don't think so as I don't bond with other people through them.

[Elftober Country]

My hobbies are really quite solitary, and I'm sure most people would find them downright boring. At work, it helps to have something to chat about, but I wouldn't say that it bonds me with people. 

[Lemonsky]

My hobbies don't really help me bond with people since I don't exactly enjoy talking about my hobbies to people I don't know well enough yet. There will always be at least one person who's going to comment about me being weird and liking dumb stuff.

[ThatHuman]

There seems to be a problem - I do ALL those things... XD

And talk about all those things..!

AND LOVE EVERYTHING!

 

THERES NEVER TOO MANY INTERESTS!

OR HOBBIES - THERES NEVER TOO MUCH!!!

[Piotrek]

When I was active on music-related forums I would sometimes arrange to meet other forum users during concerts that our group was going to. But then, I don't feel comfortable interacting in a group of people, so I don't think this counts as bonding.

[J. van Deijck]

not really, I must say.

some of my friends here have similar music tastes, some are a bit into science, some like art and some are into cats. and that's all.

I guess everyone knows what I'm interested in,and there are some of my interests that are only mine because there's no other person who would enjoy it, too. I haven't met any other cybergoth in my life who would actually become my friend.

[Topi]

I don't really think my interests help me bond with people. They are mostly things to do alone, but sometimes I try to socialize. Like, I made a Twitter, so I could follow what everyone in Youtube videos of my ship talked about and to follow updates of artists. However, that doesn't make me imediatly friends or anything. I enjoy sometimes responding to some Tweets and get likes, but I rarely go there. We talk exclusively about that topic, so that doesn't make me friends with them. 

 

AVEN was the first forum, I actually actively participated in and actually may give more about my personality and even share what I like. Here I feel like I could gain more and bond more with people. Although, the people I interact with the most isn't because of my interests. 

 

Also most of the time, I don't share my interests. I only share them with people I really trust. Only my sisters and one of my cousins know all my interests and talk with me about them. My friends only discovered some of them by accident. 

[Euna]

My main interest that's been a "real life" socializing success is, surprisingly enough, reading.  I love reading literature, history, and biographies.  I've really enjoyed discussing these topics with church friends and coworkers - most of whom are elderly men, but I guess that means I have mature reading tastes.    It's been cool connecting with older generations in this way, and while it's not making me "buddy" type of friends, the conversations can get deep very quickly. 

 

I also chat with other writers and bloggers online, and have developed a few online friendships this way.

 

Other things I like are movies/YouTube, music, sewing, origami, and makeup.  I bond with family members over these hobbies, but since my tastes are more obscure than mainstream, it's not something I bring up much in conversation with others.

[Skycaptain]

Cribbage and darts, two team games certainly do. Pets are a good conversation starter. I'd have to include AVEN meetups as a hobby as well 

[QueenOfTheRats]

A few volunteer opportunities helped me bond, but none of them were official in nature. People tend to like you better if you donate exorbitant amounts of time and emotional energy to their problems.

[NerotheReaper]

Not really, I mean sometimes and it's nice to talk about common interests. Do I bond or grow closer to those people? Nah, I grow closer to someone the longer I known them or the longer they are in my life. 

[Mezzo Forte]

This might come as a surprise, but I wear my love of music on my sleeve.  One of the reasons I like working in academia is because I get to be surrounded by so many people who are passionate about music in some way. Having fellow music academics in my life lets me have intense conversations that I never could have otherwise.

[borkfork]

I only really bonded with my classmates and other professionals.

 

Try as I might, I can't look at something created by a hobbyist that looks like 50 Etsy users and pretend to be impressed. I'd probably come across as patronizing. I've learned people like that aren't conditioned to take constructive criticism. I was known to be so blunt and brutal other instructors would borrow me in school, but I made my classmates better and they stopped hating me after a year.

 

Now I only really feel safe working in a private space or with other creative people. Sit and draw in a coffee shop and eventually someone will ask me to draw a tattoo, for free, of course. 

 

I'm not into The Bachelorette or drinking wine or veganism or talking about what I do at the gym (get it over with) so I don't seem to fit in with my peer group. 

 

Not a whole lot of people into some variation of art, design, John Waters movies, museums, and making off color jokes about the JFK assassination.

[Astryda]

I use interests that I know I have in common with some people to start the conversation, perhaps potential friendship and so on. It's kind of an ice breaker and doesn't seem awkward like approaching people out of the blue and not knowing what to say either (if I find that person interesting).

[JenniBean79]

My interests tend to set me apart from others. Most of my friends are poeple

i know through work so we can be very different. Most of the things I have a passion for don’t interest any of my friends (reading, music particularly hard rock/metal plus going to concerts, crafts/mixed media art, collecting silly stuff, Nintendo Switch, local site seeing, makeup, etc etc). Plus being single and childless I can spend a lot of time on my interests whereas my friends are in relationships and have kids so that is the focus of their lives and I can’t relate to the in any way. 

[Guest Jetsun Milarepa]

All my interests seem to be solitary ones, so it's very hard to say they bring me together with others, heck, the only interest I have where I end up meeting similar others is AVEN meet ups! 

[Member7783]

The hobbies I have are the ones I can enjoy by myself and don't have to involve other people whatsoever.  My hobbies are my break from the world.

[Visenya]

My interests and hobbies are mostly things to do alone, and I haven't found many people who have similar interests. I'd love to be able to talk about the books and TV shows that I like (among other things) with people, though. They probably think that I don't get excited about anything in life, but that's because I've rarely had the chance to talk about the things I'm passionate about. Other than hobbies, I don't have much to talk about with people because we don't usually share similar experiences either. I'm not into dating and relationships, which makes my life a bit more drama-free and boring, so most of the time I just listen while people talk about their lives. It kinda made me feel like every close friendship I've ever had was a bit too one-sided, so I guess that, in general, I just suck at bonding with other people (at least in real life, because online is a bit easier). I thought that being more open about my personal life would help with that, but I've had too many bad experiences, so I don't talk about it as much anymore.

 

To sum up, I believe that having similar hobbies, interests, personalities, and life experiences helps bonding with other people, but finding them can be much more difficult, at least in my experience.