How to Make Friends in a New City
The slow art of making a place feel like home
Since leaving college, I’ve called many cities home. From DC to Baltimore to San Francisco to Seattle and across the Atlantic to Malmö and Amsterdam, I’ve often had to move cities for work after a studio closure or a round of layoffs sent me searching for the next job.
But no place feels like home until you have friends there. And in a world where people often complain about being able to make new friends, I’ve had to learn how to make friends in new cities quickly.
Which is funny, because I never thought of myself as a particularly outgoing person back in school. But after learning a lot from others and a lot of unavoidable practice, I’ve become adept at making friends that make a new city feel like home. And as I’m making a new home here at Substack, it only seems fair to share them.
One Big Caveat
I am not talking about how to find a partner or romance. A good friendship may blossom into that over time, but you have to be okay if it doesn’t, because most won’t and you can’t force someone to want more than friendship. In fact, you can’t even force a specific person to want friendship at all.
And this is especially not advice for a pick-up artist looking for a quick one-night stand. This is advice for the slow, comfortable development of mutual friendship. The benefits of a good friendship for all parties aren’t flashy, but they are substantial: someone you can talk to, relax with, share thoughts with, and just whose presence makes a place feel more comfortable. They go far beyond simple gratification, and if you go into this seeking only a fling, you’ll be disappointed — and worse, you’ll likely hurt someone along the way.
Two Simple Requirements
People constantly say that it’s hard to make new friends after they leave their school days. But that’s because the school environment provides the two essential ingredients of making friends. Namely, repeated interaction and a shared interest.
Repeated interaction: The environment needs to provide repeated social contact between people. Daily classes are perfect for this, but weekly or bi-weekly events can also suffice. The point is that when you see someone else repeatedly, and consistently see that they aren’t dangerous or malicious, then it feels safer to communicate with them. Even if that first communication is as simple as a friendly nod, or passing the art supplies, as long as it goes without issue, it makes future communication easier. Furthermore, there isn’t pressure to get someone’s number or immediately make a connection, because you’ll see them again next time.
Shared Interest: The environment needs to provide something you and your potential friend have in common. Ideally, this is something you’re both interested in, like a subject you’re both willingly studying in school, but it can also be something you equally loathe but are still subjected to (trauma bonding is a thing, after all, but probably not the most stable way to start a friendship). Either way, it provides something that people have in common, which allows for a safe, shared subject for communication to begin.
You’ll note that both of those factors contribute to a sense of safety, which is important for people to feel comfortable reaching out to a new person. Even if the activity itself is physically dangerous, a degree of that social safety is vital — and also why going into these events with ulterior motives can be so disastrous for yourself and everyone else involved.
These two factors are why the most common places to make friends are in school or at work. It’s also why online forums can also lead to friendships, at least when they’re the type that are moderated enough to provide a sense of safety to those using them. But even as we lament the dearth of “third places” in America, there are still options. The bowling alleys and arcades may have mostly closed up, but people never stop finding excuses to get together in groups.
Take a look at activity boards in cafes or hobby shops, event nights at museums or bars, or wherever you see regular gatherings of people. Go to the wine-and-painting classes or take up dance lessons. Volunteer with a political organization or a church. I personally advise against things at nightclubs, but only because I find they’re too noisy to really have a conversation in. Maybe they work for you if your ears are better than mine.
Find something you’re honestly interested in, or even something you’re curious about and willing to explore. Then attend it regularly. Try to have at least one positive social interaction with another person each time — as small and comfortable as a friendly greeting. And let it grow from there.
Of course, that’s only the first step of forming a friendship, but for a lot of people, finding a way to begin is the hardest part. And that’s because this has a few costs that people don’t always acknowledge.
Three Costs
If I’ve made it sound effortless, then I apologize. Because there are some very real costs to this process.
The most obvious one here is Time. After we leave school, it feels like our time commitments only go up, between work and family and the like. What’s more, losing any of those time commitments can be painful (or, goodness forbid, an actual tragedy), so adults often find ourselves without time for the slow process of making new friends. Parents with a kid at home rarely have time to go to the bar every week for a drawing class. Sometimes, people who already have lots of commitments and friends simply don’t have the time to make new ones.
The second, less obvious cost is Energy. It takes effort and courage to go out and interact with strangers, especially if you’ve had bad experiences in the past. If it’s been a draining week, it’s much more tempting to stay at home and rewatch a comfort show than to go out to your weekly dance class. And because good conversation is a back-and-forth, even the most outgoing person can sometimes find they don’t have the energy to really be a full participant. The older I get, the more important I find it is to be aware of how much energy I have, how I recharge it, and when I’ll need to gracefully bow out of a night before I run out and start melting down.
And the third cost is kind of a mix of the previous two, but subtle enough to deserve its own mention: Patience. It takes time and energy to find regular activities and make friends there, and without patience, you can get frustrated and quit. Or worse, someone who is clearly impatient to make a new friend can make those around them feel unsafe. Patience isn’t exactly a limited resource like the other two costs, but it’s a skill that can be hard for some to develop. This is why it’s important to choose an activity or event that you’re interested in for its own sake — that way, you’ll always be getting something out of your time and energy, even if you’re not making friends right away.
Those costs aren’t really avoidable, although you can shift them a bit: if you don’t always have time for a weekly event, a monthly event can still offer ways to make friends — it may just take more patience to build up the familiarity to connect with others.
Go Forth and Make Friends!
In my many cities, I’ve made friends at drawing classes, karaoke nights, roller derby events, burlesque shows, art festivals, pinball arcades, and more. Once you make a friend or two in a community, it’s easier to meet more people there, and you’d be surprised how quickly that can spiral if you have the time and energy to commit to it. It can even lead to introductions in a new city, if you find yourself moving again.
In fact, if I hadn’t been constantly moving between cities for work, there are a lot of friends I never would have made — to say nothing of the wide variety of strange skills and hobbies I’ve picked up while meeting them. And even if the instability of the gaming industry does mean I sometimes have to leave their city, those connections and those skills have built me into the strange creature I am today.
And I like to think it made me a good friend for others to make, as well.