I lack friends to discuss interests with. I want to study programming but have no peers in the field. They say “Hang around five billionaires, and you’ll become the sixth”, and I believe this statement is a crucial thing about personal development. Networking is not my strong point, and communities often gatekeep unexperienced newbies. So, how do I actually find interest-based buddies?
Team-based hackathons are always fun. In-person is better, but remote is good too. Lots of intense collaboration.
Multi-day conferences or events with discussion panels, socials, or Q&As are all places to hang with, drink/eat with, and interact with people from all around an area who all share a common interest.
Find the Slacks / Discords for the groups you’re interested in. Crash out of those weirdos and find new ones. This one is tough, but not impossible.
This one is weird, but you could start a tutoring group. There are probably other students and studiers, and reinforcement learning and pair learning might be really beneficial, allow you to provide a service, and meet new people.
Just a few that came to mind quickly