How to make friends in a new city as an adult
Making friends after a move mostly comes down to time spent together, so pick something that repeats every week and keep turning up.
Moving somewhere new quietly breaks every friendship you had down to a group chat. The friends are still there, but they're not downstairs any more, and for a lot of people the loneliness of a new city shows up a few months in — after the boxes are gone, and before anyone here knows your name. The good part is that adult friendship isn't really a mystery. It runs on a few ingredients you can arrange on purpose.
It mostly comes down to hours
A study by Jeffrey Hall at the University of Kansas put rough numbers on it. Among the adults he studied, it took somewhere around 50 hours together to go from acquaintance to casual friend, around 90 to become a real friend, and over 200 to become a close one. The figures are estimates, and he found that what you do together matters too, not just the hours. That sounds like a lot, and it is. But it reframes the problem usefully. You're not failing because a nice conversation didn't turn into a friendship. You just haven't put the hours in yet. The whole game is arranging to be around the same people long enough for the hours to add up.
Pick something that repeats, not something that happens once
This is why a weekly thing beats a big one-off every time. A festival gives you a day; a Tuesday class gives you the same faces, week after week, which is how strangers slowly become familiar. A choir, a five-a-side team, a volunteering shift, an evening class, a running group. What it is barely matters. That it repeats is the entire point. If you work from home, the week can pass without you seeing anyone, so put one fixed thing in the diary. If money's tight, start with the free ones: running clubs, libraries, volunteering. Give a group six sessions before deciding whether it's for you, because unfamiliar takes time. Unwelcoming is different: if people are cold or dismissive after three or four visits, try another group. That isn't failure, it's how you find the right room. In a smaller town, look one step wider: the nearest city's groups, or a general hobby group where you can be yourself. If you've landed in London, Manchester, Barcelona or Amsterdam, our city guides list places that run week in, week out. If you're in your twenties and starting from nothing, young, gay and lonely goes through where to look.
Proximity does more of the work than effort does
One of the oldest findings in the research on friendship is also one of the most reassuring: we tend to befriend the people we keep bumping into. In a well-known 1950 study, the psychologists Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter and Kurt Back looked at friendships in a student housing complex and found that who became friends with whom came down largely to who lived nearest the stairwells and the postboxes. You can use that. Become a regular somewhere — the same café, the same gym class, the same corner of the same group — and let repeated small run-ins do the thing that trying hard at a party never quite can.
Be the one who asks twice
Nearly every adult friendship stalls in the same place: after a good first meeting, when both people are waiting for the other to suggest a second. Someone has to break the stalemate, and it may as well be you. "Fancy doing this again next week?" feels awkward to say, and it's still worth saying. People are usually relieved. They were a bit lonely too; they just didn't want to be the one who said it first. After a good first meeting, keep it simple: "Good to meet you on Tuesday. Same time next week?" or "I'm going to the market on Saturday, fancy coming?" If they're busy but suggest another time, that's interest. If they're busy twice and never suggest one, let it go without taking it personally.
Give it longer than feels reasonable
New friendships move slowly, and that's normal, not a sign you've landed somewhere cold. The arriving kind of loneliness is loudest in the first few months and quietly eases as the hours stack up. Keep turning up to the thing that repeats, keep suggesting the next meeting, and let the calendar do what effort on its own can't.
Loneliness isn't a flaw in your personality. It responds to circumstances, and circumstances are something you can change on purpose. If it helps to start before you've even finished unpacking, you can make a free friend card here and say what you're after. Finish it on Among Our People and you'll see who else is looking for friends near you. ✦