While I agree with what the author says, there is another strategy also: frequently walk around your neighborhood, be friendly, attend local events, etc. I am a tech-person who lives in a small town in the mountains. There are people to make friends with everywhere - but they may not share your exact job skills, technical interests, etc.
Also moved to a small mountain town a few years back. Despite the much wider range of age groups and interests of the people living here, I've made more friends than I did in my last decade of living in the city. People walk places and have time to chat. If you want to get involved, there are plenty of classes and groups going on or just go sit in a coffee shop or pub, turn your phone off and talk to someone.
My two best friends in my small mountain community are together fifty-five years older than me... but this doesn't stop endless conversation. We're each "effectively retired" but continue tinkering in our own ways with our world(s).
Yep, was coming here to say that; you can make friends that live close by instead. Also in a mountain village (5 different ones over 20 years) and it’s very easy to make friends; at least a lot easier than getting people to move over here (many did, but it took a far more time than making new friends). Surprisingly many people who do have the same or similar interests and skills.
Word of caution. It can go sour. It's really awkward.
I have a group of 20 to 30 friends nearby. Walkable, east coast, not NYC, fun friendly place to live.
It's amazing how fast one badly-behaved person can create chaos and uproar in a group like this. People take sides, or they try not to take sides, or they ignore cruel behaviors because they don't want to rock the boat.
I'm still friends with almost everyone, mostly because I now have really strict boundaries re privacy, after weathering a couple of these local incidents.
It can work. It works best if you keep some stuff private, and save it for your non-proximate crew.
In the immortal words of Hank Williams, "If you mind your own business then you won't be minding mine ... If you mind your own business you'll stay busy all the time."
I cannot emphasize this point enough. If members of an intentional community are really intent on becoming the best versions of themselves, I posit the probability of them growing through the common shared interests and diverging from one another is somewhat assured. Better to relish the shared moments throughout the journey of life, especially if they require extensive travel to be enjoyed.
In my own journey, my first wife and I travelled half way around the world to join an intentional meditation community of more than 1,000 in the US. We were young and delusional. While memorable experiences were had, the community as a whole fractured through inevitable evolution of lifestyle differences, political differences, divorces (and intermarriage) and subtle but extremely important differences in values, morals and ethics. It is all too easy for the passion of like mindedness to mask the much deeper core values of your own familial and cultural background, to which I find most people return later in life.
This is so universal, there must be a name for it: Our assumption that if someone shares our passion for meditation, or climate activism, or lean startup, etc., they must be just like us. I still do this! Best I can say is, I've shortened the interval to when Rational Brain overrides Tribal Brain and says no, we share a passion, otherwise we have little in common.
If I may ask, how long did you stay in the community, were you there when the worst drama happened, and what drove you out?
It's easy in your 20s and early 30s, but breaks down in your late 30s and 40s. Couples get married, have kids, want to live somewhere with more space and/or move away to pursue their careers.
I'm curious what happens in the 50s and 60s. Once kids leave home and careers are established or winding down towards retirement, what happens to the social circle?
There's definitely some churn at that stage, from retirement, divorce, career change, etc. But it brings folks in, at about the same rate it takes them out.
My neighborhood group I described above is mostly that demographic, some younger, some older.
When the kids leave for college or work, the adults look for other adults to play with. It's a fun stage of life. This group likes outdoorsy things, hiking, canoeing, camping, skiing, along with the usual potlucks and barbecues.
Despite the occasional drama, it's mostly been a blast. Human nature's much the same everywhere - the core dynamics don't change in older vs younger groups. At least in my observation.
It really sounds like the author is female, has many female friends, and leads some kind of "Sex and the City" New York lifestyle.
Like, maybe this works in NYC for some dedicated people, but in less dense, less hip, less young, less trendy settings, none of these things work, or at least they're not very relevant.
Like, maybe it would work if I moved to a very posh place in SoMa, and I had a bunch of girlfriends who I could tantalize with the location and the decor and the rooftop nightclub. But I don't, won't, and almost no one does, either.
The coolest event at my neighborhood cafe is homework club and it's a couple doors down from a fraternal Eagles Lounge with a pool table and a jukebox. There are plenty of places to live listed on Zillow, although they're neither cheap nor necessarily very nice. Most people I know work from home, rarely leave home, and lead lives of Netflix.
Wouldn't you consider that to be your area's problem rather than the author's? It's pretty common for people to leave their suburban wasteland birthplace in search of something else.
When I think of the qualities that attract me to the city where my highschool was, it's only that I'd be closer to my aging grandparents. Any friends I'm still in contact with I see just about as much as I would if I lived there. Beyond that, there isn't one single redeeming quality that can be discretely taken advantage of.
I think I'd actually have better luck with this advice in my "suburban wasteland birthplace" than where I live now, where I moved for my job, which is Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is a wasteland like no other I've seen.
Second, this advice is being offered without caveats or reservations, whereas it really only makes sense in Brooklyn and places that resemble it closely in density, walkability, and affluence.
I've never properly visited, but I haven't heard good things, and silicon valley just doesn't interest me in any way.
I guess my point was that advice for making and keeping new friends depends on their being a decent pool of people around, and if you don't have that, solve that problem first, unless you're ok with where you live for whatever reason.
Because I do have friends back home in suburban Canada, and they are struggling to expand their friend group outside of work, going into their 30s. My advice to them is to try and increase the frequency with which you're likely ot meet people in a common setting that you like to spend time in, and the city itself does not facilitate that in any meaningful way. So the first step is to move somewhere more conducive to that.
Sure, yeah, I don't think I've made any non-work friends while living here. And even that is like 2-3 people in 10 years of trying.
I guess I could blow up my life here and just start completely over somewhere else, but I'm kind of afraid that it won't be any different wherever I end up moving to, given my age.
Well, you might be right. It does all depend on circumstances, what you've got set up for you, what you like to do on a regular basis, etc.. I just think it's not beneficial to be more isolated physically, and there's other places and ways to improve that.
If I were forced to move back home to the city of ~700k, I'd simply only select a few of the neighborhoods where I'd be likely to bump into people, or get to chatting with someone at the gym or whatever. Making new friends is still hard and takes work and luck, but positioning yourself to make that hard process more enjoyable is something I think a lot of people can benefit from.
Williamsburg and Silicon Valley are extremes of particular personalities and age groups I'd think, but even within that you're going to have some people who are roughly a similar older age with similar interests.
Edit: I'd expand on this idea a little. Making and keeping friends is hard, and is the result of circumstance, discovery. Some things help.
A frequent interval of being around some of the same people for some time increases the likelihood you'll get to recognize them and discover if you have chemistry or any piece of common group. That's why work is most people's default, but it's a dangerous default.
School is a better model, you're paying to be there and there's plenty to talk about.
When I visit friends in the suburbs, it's always fine, I'm happy to see them, but it's very much a druve to and from or transit to and from kind of thing. Some people like that, they like that, but it's not as much my vibe.
Moving somewhere medium dense and walkable, in your own small town or otherwise, won't necessarily mean your life blows up for the good or bad, but it has the potential to change your opportunities, or those of your kids, in my opinion.
I do live close to a small, walkable downtown that has a few restaurants, bars, and boutiques. That said, I've been spending 3-4 hours each day at one of the several cafes here, and other than the baristas and the local homeless I get food for, I haven't become acquainted with anyone. Most of the customers are big family groups, groups of young Korean/Indian men hanging out, teenagers doing homework, and stay-at-home moms with toddlers. Usually packed with customers, especially in the evenings, but not really social environments. I suspect neighborhood cafes in typical small towns are similar.
Ya it really depends on who's around, and what other stuff is going on. All of my grocery shopping is done within about a 10min walk from me, gym is 5mins, parks 2mins, cafes are all around. I met a husband and wife at the gym that sits at the mid point of distance between where we live. We just happened to independantly start chatting one day after probably seeing each other there for months. They're nearing 50 and I'm 31. I'm thankful to have been invited over for dinner once or twice, and helped her with her computer. You never know what will happen, sometimes nothing, but by getting out there and being present in a few places, ideally welcoming but not too eager, it's a better place to be than not.
One thing I forgot to add earlier is that (I think) it really helps to spend time somewhere around others for no particular reason (hanging out). I wouldn't expect someone to come over and chat if I'm on my laptop with headphones on. But if I'm just sitting there with a coffee not doing anything specific? Maybe I chat with someone nearby if they're doing similar.
Same thing at the public fitness bars in the park. Ya I'm there to workout I guess, but really I'm there to enjoy life, and have got to meet a few of the familiar faces around.
The magic of moving somewhere new is that you unseat yourself, and you have to go and find some new places to be. It's also the tricky bit of working remotely or at all, because at least for me I tend to sit in front of my computer most of the day. Best to spend at least a few months totally unemployed as crazy as that sounds.
That doesn't really counter what I said, it just means that specifically didn't work out for you. People in my hometown are rather insular, that's partly why I don't live there. Good to try some new ideas.
I mean, yes, but I am the only person that I care about in this instance. The fact that I am who it didn't work out for is what matters to me. I'm not a sociologist. I've been doing the cafe thing all throughout my adult life in three different US states, and I've honestly never seen organic socializing happen that way (apart from some unfortunate incidents with creeps and cranks). Maybe there's some environment where you've seen it work, but I have tried and never succeeded.
OK, I lied. The coolest event at my neighborhood cafe is a 6am motorcycle club meetup before their group ride, but I don't have a hawg and have no intent to buy one.
I’ve been a part of set ups like this off and on over thirty years and it’s always been amazing. Really good model, and fairly safe failure modes. If it goes sour you don’t have to see people. When your lease ends you just move.
Do you? It seems like such a rare occurrence. I couldn’t pick out the person living in the apartment next to me from a line of people. I’ve seen them twice in the last 12 months.
This is one of the nicest things about studying abroad as its very common for all students to live together and/or in the same neghborhoods. There's always something happening within walking distance. Good times!
"While we're at 23 people today (including me), I expect 100 people in our social scene living nearby in one year. (And one day, I expect 1000 people)."
This sounds like collecting casual "facebook friends" rather than making actual human connections, practical considerations of maintaining those friendships aside: "Individuals, he says, generally have up to five people in the closest layer. The next closest layer contains an additional 10, the one beyond that an extra 35, and the final group another 100. So cumulatively, the layers contain five, 15, 50, and 150 people." quoting an article referencing Dunbar's research (https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/04/29/160438/your-brai... )
The reverse is to say you haven't made any 'qualified' friendships that have met your bar after moving into a new city for 15 months.
Moving to a new city is hard, and even harder if you have not made any friends after a year. I don't know whether this is a specific dig at NY, but most people who move to a new city would expect to socialize with a few 'new friends' within the year.
Those tips sound really useful and actionable to me.
Hosting dinner parties regularly even if you're tired is a great idea. I'm going to try doing this.
I probably don't want to co-sign an apartment, but letting people stay with me for a long-ish period of time sounds good. That seems doable for someone on a typical Facebook / Google / etc income.
My spouse and I regularly do a Wednesday night dinner. One person cooks, everyone eats, and the cook rotates. People get a small break from the weekly grind while leaving early enough to work the next day. People get a nice social conversation, and most of them get a night off of cooking. It works quite well if you can get your friends to commit to it.
Neither are possible for me. I live in a small bedroom flat. The biggest dinner party I could have is two guests and I can't sublet a room when there is only one.
from my perspective, both require way more disposable income and time than is reasonably available. perhaps i'm not being charitable and full disclosure: i don't live near many friends.
