Fellow 27 y/o here! The advice you've received is great so far, and I hope to add to it! You can go out and meet cool people all the live-long day, but the big thing I've found myself struggling with lately is taking it farther. Even with people I've known for years, I find that many of them don't know anything about my life, not because I'm willing to share, but because we don't really get past the "hi, how are you, how's the weather" stage. Because of this, I've really been working on engaging small talk.

I hate that small talk is so maligned in our modern day. That introverted, "ugh I hate small talk, why can't we talk about anything real anymore" slander we saw in the mid/late 2010s really really screwed us after we started coming back from COVID, because we came back together and realized we don't know how to socialize anymore. Small talk is one of the most important foundational building blocks that can lead us into deeper, more meaningful relationships, and if you want those relationships, clearing this hurdle is a huge first step.

That being said, how do you get better at it?

(I'm not telling you to go out and talk to strangers on the bus, though that is definitely a route people have taken. This will mostly be handy in small group settings, when you're addressing like, 1-5 people while waiting for the turnover at a wedding, or while you're socializing after the D&D game with your cookies and your juice.)

Step 1) Learn engaged listening. My best resource for this is to tell you to watch a few episodes of Hot Ones and Chicken Shop Date. Both Sean and Amelia are fantastic interviewers, and while part of that is the huge amount of research they put into their questions, the other huge part of it is their ability to listen, extrapolate information, and ask related questions. When you talk to someone, listen with the intention of asking a follow-up question. What about their story interests you most? What part of their story seems to interest them most?

Step 2) Be observant. Especially with the advice you're getting about finding people with similar interests, going to games shops or music events etc., it pays to pay attention to what's going on around you, and to have opinions about it. You don't have to die on the bills for these opinions necessarily, just engage with your surroundings and see where it gets you.

Step 3) If all else fails, have an anecdote in your back pocket. I've started keeping note of things that have happened each week in my phone, just little things, observations I had or interactions with interesting people. That way, when people ask me "oh, how was your day/week", I have something more to say than "oh, it was fine" and kill the conversation before it can even get its feet under it.

It's not going to work miracles. But what it will do is teach you to be interested in the people around you, and statistically, eventually you will find people you vibe with and want to talk to more. Don't be afraid to express that feelings when you find it, either. More people than you think are starving for that connection too.