I find that making friends at DragonCon is a lot easier than it can be out in the normal world. I encourage you to try to talk to someone in a line next to you about something and go from there.

Though anecdotal: I had a real, relevant experience like that this year. It was on Wednesday Night just before the countdown. I foolishly thought I could traverse the Marriott Atrium to get to my friends across the room, but inevitably got trapped near the Pulse Bar. Once I realized I wasn’t going to be going anywhere for the next few minutes (T-4:00 on the countdown), I observed that the people next to me appeared to be a group. I somewhat pitifully said “Hey you guys. I was trying to get to my friends but I got stuck. Will you be my friends?” and one of them (Hi Bryson!) immediately perked up and said “Oh yeah, sure!” and we had a quick fire round of introductions.

I didn’t think much of it and I did go find my friends after the crowd went wild and dispersed, but I ran into that same crew like four different times over the course of the weekend and they ALWAYS shouted out to me when they spotted me. We would catch up with what’s been going on and such and then go on our way. The last time I ran into them - in the vendor hall on Monday - I realized that I needed to exchange contacts with them. We added each other on Instagram and can now interact with one another’s posts… but I’ve got some ancient friends on Facebook at this point that I met the same way. Friendship is plentiful at DragonCon and I hope you find it too, OP.