With almost all things, there’s an element of being “in the right place at the right time.”
A lot of people boil that down to luck, but even what we commonly call “luck” has an element of action to it.
You have to get to the right place to be there at the right time. If you managed to score a rare anime figure in the convention dealer room, sure, you could call it a lucky find, but you put yourself at the right booth at the right time and it was your keen eye that spotted what you were after before anyone else could snatch it up.
Meeting people is the same way. You won’t meet a whole lot of people if you’re not putting yourself in a position to meet people.
People are drawn to people who do interesting things, things that are out of the ordinary. Normal people are hard to notice, but the guy who’s doing something unique stands out. This goes double when that thing that guy does can involve other people.
In Photo Kano, Kazuya ‘s whole life changes when he’s handed down a camera from his dad. Getting into photography changed his outlook, and he started seeing everything and everyone as potential photo subjects.
While this did attract the unwanted attention of the school’s Photography Club, it also attracted the attention of girls throughout the school, who were more than happy to have their pictures taken.
Nothing about Kazuya changed, except that he’s gotten a new hobby that got people a little bit closer to him. And it brought them in just close enough to see that, in addition to having a camera, he’s also a pretty cool guy who’s enjoyable to be around.
What’s important is that the camera is not a tactic. Kazuya’s pretty earnest in his pursuit of photography, which especially helps contrast him from the unsavory characters of the Photography Club. He’s not using photography just as a way to get close to girls, nor as a way to get embarrassing snapshots. He’s into photography because he’s into photography. It’s just another element of his character. It just happens to draw people in, where they see the rest of his personality.
Being interesting, doing interesting things, and standing out are what put you “in the right place at the right time.” They put you in a position to meet new people. But they only get you in position. A cool hobby can’t substitute for an awful or bland personality. Photography alone doesn’t get Kazuya into a relationship with any of the show’s heroines. It only provides the initial interest. Kazuya has to follow that up by being at least just as fun and interesting a person as his cool hobby suggests.
Unless you can back up being as cool as the thing you do, it’s just another cheap tactic. The idea is to have people walking away completely unsurprised that you have such a cool hobby, because you’re such a cool person.
If your personality is a win, and you know you’re not sabotaging yourself with a negative mindset, building an interesting lifestyle is the next step. Hobbies that put you around people are a good way to start getting “luckier” with social interaction and start building a social circle.
