Hi everyone, I’ll be living in Japan with my family starting this summer for a little over a year as I’ve decided to take a gap year. I’ve got citizenship, and I can generally converse in Japanese enough to get by, so I figured it’d be nice to stay and connect myself with this side of my culture.
My question is, what are the best ways for me to make friends? It doesn’t exactly matter to me if they’re foreigner or not — but I am admittedly quite nervous over how I’ll be making friends seeing that I won’t be going to school here. I’ll be in Tokyo, so I’m sure that should help quite a lot, but I’m also not turning 20 until this September.
How can I make friends who are around my age range? (Thinking early 20s, late teens.) I come from a very commuter heavy university which itself is based in a very un-walkable city in the US, so I’m not at all used to making friends with people aside from forced proximity via classes, etc. I’ve heard the live music scene is a great way to meet people, but I have no idea where to start. I’m not exactly keen on going clubbing alone, either.
Thanks, and sorry if this is a ridiculous question in advance.
by cosmicbays
5 comments
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
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**How to make friends as a young person?**
Hi everyone, I’ll be living in Japan with my family starting this summer for a little over a year as I’ve decided to take a gap year. I’ve got citizenship, and I can generally converse in Japanese enough to get by, so I figured it’d be nice to stay and connect myself with this side of my culture.
My question is, what are the best ways for me to make friends? It doesn’t exactly matter to me if they’re foreigner or not — but I am admittedly quite nervous over how I’ll be making friends seeing that I won’t be going to school here. I’ll be in Tokyo, so I’m sure that should help quite a lot, but I’m also not turning 20 until this September.
How can I make friends who are around my age range? (Thinking early 20s, late teens.) I come from a very commuter heavy university which itself is based in a very un-walkable city in the US, so I’m not at all used to making friends with people aside from forced proximity via classes, etc. I’ve heard the live music scene is a great way to meet people, but I have no idea where to start. I’m not exactly keen on going clubbing alone, either.
Thanks, and sorry if this is a ridiculous question in advance.
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I can recommend bumble to make friends for clubbing, a lot of people seem to use it. Going to clubs alone is not a big deal, you can try it on a Friday night around 11-12 and see what’s going on, especially talk to people who are in foreigner groups. I recommend shibuya, bar 33 and Baia have a good atmosphere. I will be in tokyo from august to october if you want to party one day.
Finding communities related to your hobbies is a great solution, but at the same time, don’t forget to communicate well with any people of all genders and all ages. And if you hint to them through conversation that you want to make friends with people around your age and are searching such opportunities, things usually go well. There are kind people (nosy people but in a good way) everywhere who want to assist you to build friendships.
Unless where you’re going to live is a super rural area with zero youth population, I think this strategy will more or less pay off.
Get a part time job, and get some hobbies and join social activities related to that hobby.
What are your hobbies? Finding a hobby group and going from there seems to be a good idea.