How to Make New (real) Friends in a New (fake) City

I’m an analog nomad.

definition (noun): individual who has moved around a lot, but not in a fun, travel influencer way 

New cities originally brought me self-doubt, debilitating social anxiety to the point of paranoia, and a loneliness so painful I mended my relationship with my parents.

But through brute force and repeated social engineering experiments, I learned how to find community. My ability to form bonds with strangers, and evolve those bonds into lasting friendships, has been honed into a teachable science.

So here are my 6 tips for the socially clumsy—but determined—socialite reading this.

1. Be a minority

I cannot stress the importance of this enough. Like honestly, you’re fucked if you’re absolutely not part of any societal sub-group.

For example: I’m at a bar, a park, or a Le Creuset outlet store. In my vicinity I hear homosexual lisping, and I immediately know that’s a new bestie. Or a new lover… that will become a bestie.

I also experience this when meeting other Asians. We assume certain common patterns of social behavior that facilitate friendship: ordering family style while out to eat, shoes off in apartments, sharing stories of our grandparents losing land to the Japanese, not Venmo requesting each other for small treats.

So, if you’ve been self-hating or living somewhere devoid of your people, take this new city as an opportunity to reconnect with that community, whatever it may be. It’s never too late to heal those parts of yourself.

And if you’re not a racial, gender, or sexual minority, you could try becoming a devout Christian. They seem pretty socially fulfilled.

2. Practice exposure therapy

This summer, my friends started a game: when we go out, each person has to talk to at least one stranger.

At first, this is nightmarish. But the more you approach people, the more you realize the worst-case scenario (someone being uninterested or rude) is scarier in theory than in practice.

The most common response is amusement, accompanied by charming remarks such as “aren’t you a hoot!” And the positive experiences—dashes of compliments, implied general pleasure, maybe even a real laugh—will give you a rush of validation stronger than any party drug. Positive reinforcement is powerful. Like a lab rat, you’ll start pulling the social lever more and more.

Now you’ve weaponized your fear of being unwanted into constant quests for validation. And with practice comes real friendships. Yay!

Note: For best results aim for people generally within your attractiveness, age range, and perceived class. If you’re unsure of where you land, ask trusted friends to rank you out of 10. Or steal your friend’s phone, and text another friend “hey can you rate [insert your name] out of 10?”

3. Go out on weeknights

Ok, this is probably my most legitimate, methodically-sound advice:

Weekends are precious time, reserved for close friends and lovers. The weeknight, on the contrary, is simply an extension of a workday. It’s casual. It’s flippant. It’s happy hours and coffee dates and open mics and endless small talk.

The weeknight is the ideal time to meet new people in a low-commitment way. Gathering Instagrams and phone numbers in a state of slight but coherent inebriation, you follow up with the timeliness of your work-self and the personable, entertaining nature of the friend you hope to be.

4. Finding people you like >>> making people like you

If I searched “how to make new friends” on TikTok, as you are likely to do after reading this shit-ass blog post, I’d be bombarded with instructions on how to get people to like me.

“Be an active listener!” “Remember names!” “Give a unique compliment!” These are universally mediocre ways to make a semi-positive impression on broad swaths of randos. Is that actually what you want?

An emphasis is missing on finding the people who bring out these behaviors from you naturally. If someone’s the right friend for you, it should be easy to listen intently. To remember their name. To compliment their taste, humor, interests, and personality.

It can be difficult to find and identify such people based on brief encounters. So you have to put your own self out there, and see if they run away or linger. Ask them questions until they talk about something that isn’t boring to you. Trauma dump and see if they’re good emotional support. Pitch hypothetical moral scenarios and evaluate their reasoning. Make sure they’re not an only child. Put on your favorite song and make sure they nod along.

Bonus points if they’re an active listener, remember your name, or give you a novel compliment ;)

5. Be weird (but like, in an authentic, effortless way)

The secret to being cool in an ecosystem of rapid, replicable trends is being weird. But not like, actually weird. Just weird enough to be endearing to a critical mass of strangers and acquaintances.

Nobody achieves this balance effortlessly. Your most whimsical, charming friend is likely calculating exactly how much of their true oddball self they show to the world. It is unfortunately imperative to regulate manic pixie urges for the sake of one’s social reputation.

Before rubbing a bald head or doing cartwheels in a street, you should always evaluate why someone is bald, and why the street has been closed off from traffic. Otherwise, from personal experience, a devastating faux pas may await. 

What’s most important is that the source of your weirdness is authentic. Revitalize the parts of yourself uninfluenced by others' expectations. What did you love when you were 10? That the world made you think was silly? An outfit too bold, a hobby too niche, a dream too lofty to share? Let your passions radiate out from you, and those who resonate will be drawn towards you.

6. Move to a new city

So you’ve tried the above steps, and you still have no friends who would pick you up from the airport. Your Partiful invite got more “maybes” than “going”, the run club banned you for being too slow, and your last encounter with the barista means you can never return to your local cafe.

In this case, I have one final tip: just pick up and move to a new city. I mean, you won’t be leaving anything behind.

‍