who plays the guitar?

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I do! But only the basics. I like it, but if I do it too much, my fingers hurt. I like singing much better, it doesn't hurt unless I do it wayyyy longer, and I'm better at it than at playing the guitar.

if you want proficiency in guitar you have to push beyond the pain, IOW out-stubborn it until your fingertips develop the necessary callousing. it took me almost a year for that to happen. also, if I had to do it all over again, in the 1980s I would have started with classical guitar as the nylon strings are MUCH better for newbies to learn on- lower string tension plus the nylon doesn't lacerate the fingertips like steel does.

I play guitar too, if you couldn't tell (those are my instruments in my avatar ).

I was classically trained for a while, but I just play as a hobby now, a mixture of classical and everything else. I also do a bit of teaching beginning kids. I try to sing to it every now and then when the house is empty, I even wrote an original song once, but unfortunately I can't sing to save my life.

It's probably because I was classically trained, but I definitely prefer nylon string guitars, I like the feel of the wider neck, and the gentler sound.

I never had any problems with strings hurting my fingers, but that's probably just because I don't play steel strings that much, although I do use high-tension nylon strings which are just as bad. Also, acoustic steel strings are worse for this than electric. This is only my opinion, but in my experience, cheaper steel-string acoustics tend to sound quite harsh and the trebles really 'sting', therefore unless you want to go electric, you're better off with a classical, as you can get a relatively cheap one that will still sound decent.

is that a bass clarinet on the right side [facing viewer] of your avatar pic?

I'm trying to self-teach, but I am WAY too self-conscious and I live with very nosy and intrusive people at the moment who are always spying on me, so it's slow going. I have to wait until they are physically away from the house which is almost never.
I think it seems interesting, an interest that could be enjoyable. I hadn't thought about meeting people through it, just doing it because I want to.
I did think about going for some lessons, but I've found this difficult as an adult beginner before with instruments - most teachers get you to play nursery rhymes. I know they do it because they're simple songs for you to master and get the hang of the whole thing before you progress, but I'm a bit sensitive about being patronized, and I find someone telling me, an adult, to play stupid nursery rhymes to be patronizing.
If I do go ahead with a teacher, I'd be up front about that. Scales, chords, fingerpicking exercises, and simple compositions to get accustomed to playing are fine, but childish nursery rhymes are not.

Been playing for about 6 years. It's pretty fun on its own merits, but it's not as cathartic as drumming. Probably because you can't exactly "bang" a guitar.

Yes, it is. Unfortunately, that one isn't mine (they're freakishly expensive), it's my old High school's. The school got it for me when I was there, apparently no one's really picked it up since I finished, so I still have access to it if I need it for a show or anything, I played it for Mary Poppins earlier this year.

I've had my fair share of kids who've tried to 'bang' a guitar, lol, unfortunately a couple of them have managed to break their guitars. Kid shows up at his lesson, opens the bag and pulls out a guitar in pieces, the neck's completely broken in half... I've had some cases where parents have asked me to fix guitars like this, as if it's the simplest thing in the world. I also had one disaster where someone's Dad tried to 'fix' it himself...

C2V, I understand what you mean about being self-conscious, I'm like that with singing.

I know exactly what you mean regarding feeling silly playing nursery rhymes, I hated this even when I was a kid! I suspect this puts a lot of kids off learning music altogether, which is a real shame, and unless I'm dealing with really young kids (who are probably too young for guitar anyway), I try to use nursery rhymes as little as possible in my teaching. They're actually not good for learning music anyway, because students tend to just figure them out by simple trial-and-error, not by actually learning their notes.

Unfortunately, the way most guitar method books are written is horrible; they're full of boring nursery rhymes, there are annoying childish cartoons filling every inch of the page, and most of them contain little genuine educational content before you're required to buy the next book (the main guitar book that is popular down here in Melbourne teaches only 5 notes!!). Last year, I got so sick of these trashy method books that I went ahead and wrote my own, and not trying to inflate my ego here, but I think it was a success, by the end of the year all my students at all levels were reading music and were learning much faster and better than they were previously, and this made it more fun and satisfying for them in turn.