Seriously though the only places I've seen any kind of thriving community are invite-only private torrent tracker sites.

Videogames.

Whatever you do, steer clear of meetup.com - all of their social activities on there now are scientologists thinly veiling their seminars as get-togethers.

I don't have an answer about online methods... I went through the phase of how to meet people as well, and eventually decided to join / try out some group activities. I did some rookie dragon boating, table tennis, stand up paddle, and eventually met my forever spouse as she taught me scuba diving. PS: other than the scuba diving, those were all free activities for beginners. Good luck

Meeting people is much possible in the real world.

I want a serious answer, how should I find people online to talk to about anything really other than politics?

You don't.

You don't find people online (or IRL) waiting for strangers to start a discussion on some random topic you feel like talking about. Because people, unlike trolls, are busy with their live.

What you can find is people willing to discuss with someone they find interesting or, with any luck, intriguing on whatever topic you both are interested in.

So, what are you interested in? Have you any hobbies, interests, passions? Find small communities around those topics you're interested in, and start posting. Do the work to show you're there and that, maybe, you're worth discussing with.

thinked

You don’ thunk hard

Play on small game servers at the same time every day. Eventually youll start seeing the regulars and then its just a matter or trying to break into the friend group.

Outside of that you could try discord but its like wading through a sea of shit. If youre over 25 it will be very hard to find a group that doesnt eventually end up filled with kids or everyone has gotten on with their lives.

I hear Lemmy is pretty good as a sort of forum, maybe you've heard of it?

But more seriously, I've found that social media platforms (even the fediverse ones) tend to limit connections to surface-level. I personally wouldn't rely on them to find people to talk to. But if you're looking for communities who share similar interests, it's very good at that. If you're looking for individuals, the next best thing is sliding into someone's DMs to have a more focused one-on-one conversation. I'd recommend against doing that without some other interaction first (it looks scammy).

In case you want to chat, my DMs are open.

I posted on lemmy if anyone wanted to play games with me. Someone answered and we talk everyday since then, on most days we spend hours on video calls. Just try posting on whatever you use, you might find people you like.

What things are you interested in? Video games, ttrpgs, anime, cinema, woodworking, sports, fast cars, sneakers, programming, yoga, wines, bdsm, books, drawing, dogs, veganism, religion, music, hiking?

Whatever the answer is, find a community for it or adjacent to it. On Lemmy, Reddit, Discord, Matrix, or some obscure forum.

And then, the last step, is engage with that community.

A couple years ago I had my discord nametag as my Mario Kart Wii nickname, zheg#someNumbers, random people added me and then talked with them while playing. Those were good ol' days.

VRChat is an option. Takes effort to make your way to the cool people tho.

You really want online? I guess playing games, discord, vrchat.

My suggestion, do stuff IRL

For me, what worked best has been smaller sites/communities! Specifically art/roleplay spaces (with the caveat these spaces also have a lot of drama and people who live for said drama) and virtual pet sites somehow lol. But I also feel like people online just aren't as interested in talking or having actual conversations as much as they used to, so it's less about looking in specific places and more about just... Getting lucky and finding someone on your same wavelength I suppose.

Gaming can be another way to meet people too. Can't speak from experience there, but my brother was super involved in the Hearts of Iron IV modding community for years and made friends through it!

Check out https://slowly.app/ - its a penpall service that simulates snail mail which makes for great connections! You can get a random pall or choose one explicitly and the community there is really wholesome.

You make bids for connection and continue the ones that are reciprocated.

What is it that you want to talk about? There's plenty about programming, math, and stuff like that. Maybe other stuff too, but that's the stuff I'm into. Hacker News is definitely overrated and always has been though.

We could easily make some sort of Lemmy instance where lonely people could find friendship and love, right? Maybe it's been created already? I met my now wife online (about a decade ago) so don't lose hope, you never know what tomorrow holds!

They don't.

If you want to talk to real people you've got to go out in the real world.

Volunteer for something. Animal shelters and community theaters always need extra hands.

I met someone on Reddit about 5 years ago whilst talking about making a smart mirror for fun. Ended up not making the mirror but did end up in a relationship from it. Was random, I had never exchanged dm's with anyone before that.