Perhaps I've always been a lone ranger, which sometimes makes me feel lonely. I'd like to connect with cryptocurrency investors from around the world and share our insights and experiences.
I would say that buying stuff like bitcoin and ethereum would be the smart way to go, and you would be able to find communities for traders on telegram to chat about it as well. Just go to telegram, write on the search bar "crypto trading group" or something and I am sure you will find a bunch of it. I get that it is not an organic way of finding people, you will be forcing it, but at the very least you will not be alone.
For newbies its really better.if they could just buy bitcoin and other top so they can practice there trading skills on this coins and they will not get worried about if they might be scam since this coins are giants in the market. But I may not recommend him to go to telegram since there are so many scammers there. Much better if he stays on trading discussion and altcoin boards since he can learn a lot there.