Making friends is hard. I understand the feeling of loneliness some might be feeling seeing others in the fandom have “the time of their lives”, hanging out with other furries IRL.

I was in a similar boat when I initially joined the fandom back in 2018. I didn’t know a single soul who also had an interest in this as much as I did. My then-existing circle weren’t furries themselves, while all of them were roleplayers, this only ever extended to original or existing humanoid characters. So I had nobody to really talk about this with.

What I did back then was join a Discord server called Couch Furs, to have some way of socializing with other furries. Through that, I got to know a lot of the other regulars of the server, eventually finding friends and even (ex-)partners through it eventually.

But to get to the main point, I think reading about my experience and what I’ve learned over the years, might be a good start, or good advice to at least keep in mind for the future.

I think by now you can probably guess that the main suggestion is “somehow put yourself out there”. Which, yes, partly true. But a big part of it is that you can’t go into something, like a Convention, Discord, Apps (like BARQ), or anything else, expecting to come back out with a Friend or a Partner.

You have to be willing to put yourself out there over and over, and be open to the possibility that you might not find what you’re looking for immediately. It’s okay to not find someone right away, and it’s okay to not find someone at all. The important thing is to keep trying, and to keep putting yourself out there, despite how frustrating it might be. Eventually you’ll find a group of People you’ll be able to call your friends, and eventually someone you can call your partner.

This one is honestly the most important piece of advice to keep in mind.

Though, once you’ve managed to build that up, or even during that, something that helped me make a good bunch of Friends, was asking my Friends if I could join them while they hung out with their Friends.

For me personally, it’s hard to feel comfortable with a person I know nothing about, so having that mutual friend there who knows me and the others, helped out a lot to become friends with them as well.

While the previous advice is good for how you should approach it, this one is good for how you should go about expanding “your network”. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to let you join their group if the vibe is right, and how many people are willing to introduce you to their friends, not to mention the types of People you’ll meet along the way.

end note

I’ve been thinking about writing this Post since around Thanksgiving last year and chipping away at it since the new year. I personally don’t know how or what else to write here but I’d be happy to hear what you think about this.

I know that what I wrote here won’t work for every person, but it’s advice that has helped, worked, and proven itself right for me throughout my years in the Fandom.

Bluesky — Twitter