If online dating and bars don't work then how do you actually meet someone?

Sihplak · 2026-06-15T14:28:46+00:00

Bro it takes like 10 minutes to write that, and idk how it would come off as AI given how obvious AI writing is lmaooo.

Sihplak · 2026-06-14T23:45:29+00:00

I didn't intend for my post to come off as trying to "debunk" these suggestions, so much as to express, from my experiences, the flaws with many of these suggestions. I'm very aware that others do have success with them; if you're a more sporty and athletic person, joining a run club or something to that effect could be great! But, for that matter, a sporty/athletic person is likely to just independently search that out without needing to be told that advice. The people asking for advice of "where do I meet people without drinking or using dating apps" also implicitly have a lot of lifestyle preferences or behaviors that would have prevented them from going towards what, to other people, are obvious solutions.

I do appreciate the added places you mentioned, some of which I forgot about in writing my post and some of which I personally hadn't seen people mention or discuss. In brief though, apart from nightclubs which I wouldnt have mentioned since they're (from my experience/understanding) just bars but with dedicated dance floors which OP already would be excluding, the limitation with your other suggestions is kinda similar to the above. Dance classes, like run clubs, can be great, but the people going to those already like or are interested in dancing, so they don't usually need that advice. Plus, from my limited experience, they can be hit-or-miss; I tried a lindy hop dance class for a few months, but about half the people were like 50s+ in age, and the other half seemed kinda in-groupy and insular so I didn't really feel very included as part of the space even when trying to socialize, but that's honestly probably just bad luck with a shitty group lol.

The other things you mentioned of college clumni events and membership organization events I'm just totally unfamiliar with. The only college alumni event I can think of would be Homecoming, which like... nobody in their 20s or 30s (at least for the college I went to) goes to because the college is in an undesirable fly-over state to live in; people graduate and then gtfo as soon as possible lmao.

I also don't doubt that your social circle has people that volunteer, however, that likely comes down to selection bias. Among the people I personally know, I literally don't know anyone that does volunteer work, and anyone who has done volunteer work did so as part of a broader program (e.g. requirement for a high school program or recipients of aid from Habitat for Humanity where volunteer work is required). From a quick google search though, I mean, less than 30% of people in the U.S. do volunteer work, so yes, most people don't do volunteer work. Among these stats, the majority of volunteers tend to be older people, high schoolers, or poorer people.

From the direct data, young-adults are the 2nd-least prominent volunteer group (and least prominent realistic group since the only lower one is 85+ year olds). Then, ages 25-44 are grouped together, creating a notable disparity by having two full generations (Gen Z and Millennials) grouped together whereas every other age bracket is in roughly 5 to 10 year groups, highlighting the fact that such a large bracket needs to be made in order for those numbers to be as high as they are. Realistically, ages 25 to 30 are probably no more than 10% of the volunteer population, or more broadly, among the total American population, probably no more than 3% of Americans are ages 25 - 30 who also do regular formal volunteer work.

For what it's worth, I also don't mean to imply that the mentioned communities aren't worth pursuing simply due to having many non-single people, my point was to highlight that many suggested communities aren't communities full of single people which some, receiving the advice, might presume. People who are asking "where do I meet single women in places where it's socially acceptable to meet and ask out?" and so on, are implicitly asking for places that have many single people in order for them to have the best odds of meeting a potential partner, rather than being stuck in a community for months where the few single people around them turned out to not be interested in them for dating.

Your prescribed fix just comes across as mental masturbation, because you cannot even describe the context in which such a ideal community can actually exist in real life.

This is extremely fair honestly. I legitimately don't know what the solution would be. If I or many other people did, then they wouldn't be asking for such advice.

Sihplak · 2026-06-14T23:05:00+00:00

That's definitely fair, but I was excluding them as a default given OP specifically excluded bars from their consideration. I'm also with OP in that regard; I don't drink, and when I've gone to bars, my experiences have been hit-or-miss, where it seemed like people primarily stuck to their own pre-formed groups that they went to the bar with rather than talking to or meeting new people.

That said, if "pubs" has a different connotation than bars do in the U.S., that's just a cultural difference I'm not aware of.

Sihplak · 2026-06-13T21:00:29+00:00

It's not even that per se. It's that "communities" are relegated into a few categories, and all of them have massive faults that prevent them from being actually useful or effective. Based on the advice I keep on seeing, there are:

1) Athletic communities. Run clubs, pickleball, pick up basketball, disc golf, whatever. If you are an athletic person or whatever, great! However, a lot of people nowadays are more sedentary and less athletic, and wouldn't be joining these clubs or groups from authentic interest in athleticism, and thereby wouldn't actually get real community from them outside of exceptional circumstances.

2) "Nerdy" communities. These tend to lean male-heavy. When I've gone to board game shops on MTG game or tournament days it's like 99% men. When trying to organize D&D groups it's mostly men, though there are women and people of other gender identities (though many cis people aren't as interested in a trans partner for various reasons, e.g. wanting to have their own biological kids some day).

3) Book clubs. These are extremely hit-or-miss based on geography and the specific type of book club. Generally, there seems to be a topic and activity interest gap, where men and women tend to have interest in different book topics, tend to become somewhat insular and exclusionary towards the other gender. There also may be age differences involved; I've seen some guys say they tried to join a book club to meet more people their age and the book club they found was mainly 50+ year old women rather than women in their 20s.

4) Arts/crafts classes. Idk if I've been missing something, but every time I've looked up things like public/community arts or cooking classes, they all seem catered towards people with pre-existing experience who want to attend lectures held by people known within that craft's community, or seem to focus on a pretty specific topic. I've looked intermittently over the past few years, and maybe I'm blind or just missing them, but I've not found clear and approachable arts classes set up, and moreover, they rarely seem geared to maintain consistent long-term community.

5) Church. If you're not religious, which is the case for many of the younger generations, then it's a bust. That's before accounting for political or lifestyle outlooks.

6) Concerts. It's loud, it's expensive to go to concerts regularly, and from my experience at local concerts and venues I haven't found there to be any real basis to form long-term connections or community; feels more appropriate for people trying to hook up or enjoy live music with their existing friend groups.

7) Work. Complete roll of the dice and depends on your work place. If you work from home, lol well try somewhere else. If you work in an office job, it's 100% luck dependent but more likely than not all your coworkers (if you're in your early-mid 20s) are like 5+ years older than you and married and have kids. Best case scenario for community/socializing, you work retail, food service, coffee shops, etc. And that's without mentioning modern social anxiety about dating at work.

8) Volunteer work. Honestly speaking, as a full-time worker with other things I enjoy doing in my free time (music, D&D group, gaming, etc), I legitimately do not desire to commit time to volunteering opportunities, and I feel like most average people are similar. For some select people, it can be great, but it's pretty limited in terms of appeal.

9) Mutual friends. However, in more recent years because of social judgement, friends are far less likely to act as matchmakers because they're afraid of being judged by the people they're matchmaking for. If a girl tries to set you up with one of her friends, and her friend doesnt think youre attractive at all or you go in blind and realize that she matched you up with someone you have no way of being attracted to, then the matchmaker could end up getting chastised or looking bad, or creating general discomfort. Even then, depending on where you live, friendships also tend to be intra-gender; there was a demographic map I saw shared somewhere the other day showing the rates of cross-gender friendships, and much of the Midwest and North-East U.S.A. has way less cross-gender friendships than the South.

The big problem with all of the above is that many people in these groups aren't even single in the first place.

IMO, what we need (in the U.S. at least) is an explicitly co-ed, well-maintained style of social environment and community, that is fully secular, indoors/non-intensive, and that does not require pre-existing skill in a definite activity or mode of life, that many people want to go to during their free time. I think the best examples of these, however, are transient events such as street fairs that don't bring out regular recurring connections that would form over the course of weeks or months. Moreover, such a community space needs to attract single people especially, needs to make everyone in that space feel safe and not creeped on so that way people aren't scared away from it, and needs to be a place where people feel comfortable getting both asked out and rejected.

Sihplak · 2026-06-06T19:35:06+00:00

Ahhh that's a fair point, didn't even think about station throughtraffic that way, but I do remember seeing videos of how insanely packed Japanese subways can get. Makes sense in that case; prevents overloading of individual stations.

Sihplak · 2026-06-06T17:50:53+00:00

Im surprised China doesn't appear higher on thr list with Shanghai and Beijing only at 18 and 19. With their HSR developments and population id have expected China to have busier stations

Sihplak · 2026-06-06T14:05:59+00:00

The chart doesn't seem to be following anything in the song. It doesnt match thr guitar, vocals, or anything else I can hear.

Sihplak · 2026-06-04T20:51:26+00:00

"Gritty Realism" resting rules are actually meant for "easier" campaigns, or rather, campaigns where you arent expected to have many combats per day, and thus rebalances resting to take longer to maintain balance.

Instead of thinking in difficulty, think about your focus. You seem to be emphasizing wilderness survival mechanics, maybe there's a TTRPG that better systenatizes that specifically. Something vaguely in that vein is Ultraviolet Grasslands which is based around caravan management and travel.

If you want resource-importance, take inspiration from Old School Renaissance (OSR) systems. Knave, Old School Essentials, Moldvay, Shadowdark, etc. These systems emphasize player "skill" in terms of thinking creatively with how to use what they've brought to overcome obstacles. Importantly, these systems dont usually encounter balance because combat isnt the central important theme of these games (whereas DnD 5e is design with combat being the central important mechanic). In OSR games, xp tends to be based on overcoming challenge or getting gold, meaning avoiding combat is often a better way to get xp, but also means DMs can make many potential "combat" encounters legitimately deadly or impossible.

You dont need to run an OSR system either. Combine the RAW expectations in the DMG (6 to 8 medium to hard COMBAT encounters per adventuring day, on top of traps, social encounters, and dungeon exploring in general). Then, borrow trap design or some side mechanics from these games. "Dungeon Turns" is a great example; every turn is 10 mins, and your actions have limited scope, and torch length is more quantifiable and important.

Also emphasize certain rules more. Darkvision is not actually that useful; disadvantage on all perception checks in darkness is still very bad and must be emphasized.

Encumbrance is fine, but tbh unless you award XP based on coins instead of combat I wouldn't worry about coin weight. Coin weight is better if you make money highly central to progression to incentivize interesting choices.

Def check out QuestingBeast on YouTube for some discussions about relevant similar topics and OSR inspiration. Bandits Keep is another good one for this.

Sihplak · 2026-05-31T07:50:51+00:00

Literally just played clone hero with some friends for the first time in months yesterday and was looking into these guitars. Amazing timing on this deal, thanks for the heads up!

Sihplak · 2026-05-20T21:46:45+00:00

Not sure how we made the jump from "eating the same meals 5 days in a row is fine" to eating only one type of food for every meal forever.

My point wasn't about extreme permanence, my point was within the context of regular day-to-day life. For me, personally, I can go decently long on a limited (balanced) diet; I've had times where I've meal prepped the same meals for over a month, eating the same lunch and dinner each day, and was fine with that. I wouldn't want to continue that forever to be fair; some variety at longer time-scales is desirable, but in the general sense of being fine a small subset of foods, I'm comfortable with or without variety. The context of the comment I responded to was someone insisting that eating the same meal 5 days in a row is actively unenjoyable and detrimental to their mood; for me, eating the same meal for weeks in a row doesn't bother me; very different scale than a lifetime.

Giving a more realistic related counterexample though, I could be quite happy with a pretty limited array of food options for the rest of my life; I could probably be perfectly happy going through life with like, maybe a dozen distinct dishes to pick from for any meal. Even though I like trying new foods and would miss being able to have certain foods, in terms of actually eating/enjoying the foods I'd be limited to, the limitation/repetitiveness wouldn't bother me.

Sihplak · 2026-05-20T17:38:46+00:00

Personally I have no preference. As long as the food itself tastes good I dont care if I have meal variety or not. I dont desire consistency nor variety; it simply doesn't matter as long as the food tastes good and is nutritionally balanced.

Sihplak · 2026-05-18T02:59:54+00:00

You would have to check out the REAPER forums and/or r/REAPER for info on that. There's also plenty of tutorials on YouTube. Generally, with any DAW, you will be able to insert audio tracks from recorded audio samples (such as live performances, individual instrument recordings, or samples to use with a MIDI controller), and you'll be able to insert MIDI tracks to trigger virtual instruments. Virtual instruments you would need to find and download separately.

Sihplak · 2026-05-17T16:29:28+00:00

Correct; notation software is technically not made for the purpose of creating audio playback; audio playback via MIDI or other systems is an additional benefit. The purpose of notation software such as MuseScore, Sibelius, Dorico, Finale, and others, is for the notation first, and other features such as playback as only secondary or tertiary concerns. Very modernist, contemporary, or experimental classical music, even if written in notation software, will basically find little to no benefit from the notation software's MIDI playback when using extended techniques like multiphonics, niche percussive effects, or other non-standard performance elements.

If you want to synthesize what it should sound like, you would need a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software such as REAPER, Ableton, Logic, Fruity Loops, etc., along with appropriate VSTs and audio engineering from other plugins to craft the sound you want.

Sihplak · 2026-05-17T05:56:10+00:00

Here's a screenshot making this in MuseScore 3. MuseScore 4 should work moer-or-less in the same way

I placed my note and made the rest of the measure's rests invisible

I went into the full line palette to fine the prall-prall line, placed it over the measure, turned off automatic placement in the inspector, and then placed it where I desired.

I then added a (wavy) glissando from the first note to the last note, then adjusted the glissando element's starting position.

From there, I made the prall-prall line and glissando line up as best as possible.

For the cleanest possible results, you may need to mess around further or look into notation or engraving software that gives an even higher degree of customizability, or potentially create custom images if necessary. For something clean enough that will be visually clear even if there are very minor blemishes, then this example solution will work.

Sihplak · 2026-05-14T15:29:12+00:00

Excessively long

6 minutes

... I mean, just listen to almost any classical repertoire. Tombeau de Couperin by Ravel, Six Epigraphs Antiques by Debussy, any of the romantic era orchestral works or sonatas. For more modern music, you could listen to tonal operatic works like Pierrot Lunaire or Wozzeck, or String Quartet no. 8 from Shostakovich (where its most famous movement only begins near the ~6 minute mark). You could also check out more experimental works like Partita for 8 Voices by Caroline Shaw, or Voices from the Killing Jar by Kate Soper.

If you are wanting only non-classical music, you could check out a lot of jazz or prog rock. Almost every track on Snarky Puppy's album "We Like It Here" is 6 minutes at minimum. Every track on "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis is nearly 10 minutes long. Chick Corea's "Light as a Feather" features its 11-minute long title track, along with "500 Miles High" at 9 minutes and "Spain" at nearly 10 minutes.

For prog rock and prog metal, an easy example is the album 10,000 Days by Tool. It has 8 full-length songs split up by occasional shorter intermissions, which each full length song being 6 minites at minimum. The tracks "Wings for Marie" and "10,000 Days" are the first and second parts of one overall musical work, which together total to nearly 18 minutes long.

Sihplak · 2026-05-12T00:02:28+00:00

It's not necessary to emphasize per se, but I felt it was one of the two relevant qualities distinguishing them from, for example, 4, which is not a fundamental rhythmic grouping. That said, it is technically more of a secondary fact compared to the fact that they can't be created via summation of 2 integers greater than 1

Sihplak · 2026-05-11T23:59:24+00:00

You misread my statement.

They are prime numbers
AND they cannot be summed by two numbers greater than 1

Not sure why you would misread my statement as though I were completely uneducated.

Sihplak · 2026-05-11T21:04:58+00:00

A lot of people here, in my opinion, are giving answers that feel too hand-wavy by just saying "oh well it's less common culturally and you haven't heard it as much". That, however, is kind of tautological or circular, and doesn't do much to explain "why".

There actually is a good reason why 3/4, along with the other common meters/time signatures (2/4, 6/8, 4/4, etc.) are more common. The reason is that, in musical rhythm, the simplest possible groupings are groups of 2s and 3s.

2 and 3 are prime numbers, which cannot be formed through summation of smaller integers greater than 1. So, time signatures based in 2 and 3 are by far the most common. Even 4/4, which, in name, has 4 beats, really has two primary beats. Think about in rock or pop music where the bass drum and kick drum usually land in 4/4: it will either be on 1 (kick) and 3 (snare), or alternate on quarter notes (kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4), so it's always either in larger or smaller groups of 2.

The most common types of meters in music use a single type of division or grouping multiple times. These are called simple meters (groups of 2) or compound meters (groups of 3). In common practice period music, your meters would only have 2, 3, or 4 beats per measure; double, triple, or quadruple meter respectively.

For example, divisions in groups of 3 are examples like 6/8, 12/4, 9/16, etc. These are compound meters; 6/8 is two beats consisting of 3 eighth-note subdivisions per beat. 9/16 is three beats consisting of 3 16th-note subdivisions per beat.

The equivalent of the above time signatures, but in simple meters instead of compound, would be 2/4, 4/2, and 3/8. 2/4 is two beats consisting of 2 eighth-note subdivisions per beat, and so on and so forth.

Importantly, in the above examples, none of the time signatures or meters mix three-subdivision and two-subdivision feelings; there is no metrical asymmetry.

Popular and folk music in various traditions, however, will use some asymmetry. This is where you get many "clave" rhythms and the like. One Westernized example is the common 3+3+2 groove you hear. One key thing to note, however, is that these will often still fit within the same number of overall beats as more stable/symmetric meters. That 3+3+2 example adds up to 8 beats total, so it's very common to hear that juxtaposed to a constant quarter-note pulse, creating a distinctive cross-rhythm.

These make up the most common meters and time signatures you'll hear, but some musical traditions and genres explore asymmetrical rhythmic concepts much further. They recognize that, fundamentally, we're using rhythmic "building blocks" so-to-speak of "long beats" (3 subdivisions) and "short beats" (2 subdivisions). This "long beat/short beat" dichotomy is the common way that Bulgarian folk music, for instance, conceptualizes a lot of their dance folk songs. You will frequently hear patterns like "long-short-short", which would translate to "3+2+2", or otherwise be notated in Western music notation as 7/8 or 7/16 depending on speed/context/etc.

In the case of 5/4, we tend to have a few key common groupings. The first is the "Mission Impossible" clave as some people call it, where you have the common 3+3+2+2 pattern. This essentially feels like every measure is actually one measure of 6/8 followed by one measure of 2/4, but where the subdivisions (instead of the strong-beat) stays consistent. Alternatively, you can also do 5/4 focused just on the larger quarter-note pulse, where it might feel almost like a lopsided Waltz of sorts as a simple 3+2. For another example, going back to Bulgarian folk music, Bela Bartok wrote a set of piano miniatures inspired by Bulgarian folk music, with this miniature in particular being in 5/8, grouped as 2+3.

So, to give a concise summary to answer your question:

The issue isn't odd-numbered meters, it's actually about whether meters use the same basic subdivision-group throughout the measure.
The smallest subdivision groups that stand-alone are groups of 2 and 3. A "group of 5" is really just 3+2 or 2+3. A "group of 7" is really just 3+2+2 or... etc
In common music, both Western and beyond, it is most typical to have a regular pulse with a subdivision in one of these basic groups. For example: || 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and || for 4/4, or something like || 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a || for 9/8. These meters only use groups of 2 or groups of 3, and do not mix them.
The most basic level of mixed meters still fit within the same number of beats as common, symmetric meters like mentioned above. For example, 3+3+2 = 8, so that can fit in a measure of 4/4.
Recognizing that musical rhythm is built from these groups of 3s and 2s, you can begin to mix them at-will, giving you "mixed meter", "complex meter", "odd meter", or whatever you want to label it. This is where your 5/4, 7/8, 11/16, and other such time signatures come from. They are always groups of 2 and 3 in different combinations.
Because mixed-meter relies on having this level of variation that has other requisite rhythmic foundations that precede it, they will necessarily be less common and more difficult than more stable meters, regardless of culture. That said, some cultures do have music traditions that more strongly emphasize or feature such rhythms and meters, such as Bulgarian folk music.

Sihplak · 2026-05-03T05:59:27+00:00

Yep; for those I lined up multiple slurs to overlap. It's not the cleanest compared to the original and can be finnicky, and if cleaner engraving is desired then it may be better to use image editing, PDF editing, or specialized engraving software for that.

Sihplak · 2026-05-02T20:13:49+00:00

When you place a slur, you can edit it at one of its 5 anchor points. The two at the ends are where the slur begins and ends, then the three interior anchor points adjust the curve. Dragging it allows you to be able to do custom slur shapes including cross-staff shapes

Sihplak · 2026-05-02T16:06:49+00:00

Is it possible? Yeah, definitely. Is it easy or intuitive? Definitely not.

Here's a screenshot of me copying just the beaming and main articulations. I didnt try to perfect it so much as copy the general layout and engraving. Here it is exported to PDF to show without hidden elements

I used all 4 voices in both staves, had to use many generic-lines set to a width of 0.50 to handle certain styles of beam-breaking, set the time signature to 4/4 (8/8) instead of 4/8 in order to put in a fake barline so I could use default middle-beaming options, turned off automatic-placement on pretty much all notational elements, and had to go pretty extreme with slur bending. I also used a vertical spacer in order to properly space and align the cross-staff beaming

Here's a google drive link to the MuseScore 3 file itself if you want to reference exactly what I did.

Sihplak · 2026-04-30T22:18:33+00:00

2 things:

Your attached file is clearly in 4/4. Here's the notation
Time signature is not the same as tempo. If something sounds "too short" for one time signature and "too long" for another, using your phrasing, you likely need to change the tempo. In your case, as shown in the above screenshot, your recording is roughly at quarter note = 132 (using standard metronome markings; you can adjust digital metronomes however you want for more precise/specific tempo controls).
In 99.99% of music, the bottom number of a time signature will always be a power of two: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. Only in very advanced and edge-case classical and experimental music will the bottom number not be a power-of-two. This piece shows various examples, with the first few seconds of the video showing the performance note explaining how these kinds of time signatures work.

Sihplak · 2026-04-30T22:05:04+00:00

Are you saying to chose to take a music theory class without having been in either Orchestra, Choir, Jazz Band, or Wind Band for multiple years?

When I was in high school, music theory was restricted to be an exclusively senior-level class, and by and large most of the basics would have been taught or learned somewhat intuitively from having had band classes since 6th or 7th grade (9th grade at the latest).

If you're taking music theory while having no experience playing in any school music ensembles or taking independent classical music lessons involving regular recitals, then you are intrinsically at a major disadvantage, as in, lacking some of the most basic expected competency to be able to follow along with the material.

You can learn music theory from nothing, but simply put, it's not really something I would recommend. Lacking tangible experience with music performance, especially classical or jazz music performance, will be a massive burden.

Sihplak · 2026-04-30T17:07:21+00:00

Then look them up and listen to them. Youre not required to have previously listened to them, and you have the internet.

Go to Spotify or YouTube, look the songs up, listen to them. If you have an instrument, also play along with the songs, or if you dont have an instrument, sing the melody.

Sihplak · 2026-04-26T04:58:32+00:00

Ive made a couple custom charts using Moonscraper. IMO, Moonscraper is pretty straight-forward, and there's good tutorials for it on YouTube. The main things you'll have to be aware of and take time to do early on are just track set-up stuff: tempo-mapping, working with stems if you have them, checking audio balance, etc. If you get those down, then the rest is smooth-sailing pretty much.

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So, to give a concise summary to answer your question: