Keep coming back

A formula for getting more people in your life

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

I recently spent two weeks in southern California, where I grew up, and found myself at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf most mornings during the first half of our trip. CBTL, as my sister and I call it, is a southern California-based chain that we loved as kids for their Ice Blendeds and have continued loving as adults out of some kind of nostalgia.

But this time, it felt different. Whatever conglomerate now owns Coffee Bean seems to have stripped it of all the funky, faded charm it once had. Beyond serving weak coffee, the tables and chairs feel uncommonly hard and cold. The lighting is way too bright. There are no obvious spaces to nestle behind a laptop or a book for an hour. The overall vibe is spartan, clinical — more like somewhere you’d go for a blood test than a warming drink.

I watched as residents of the sunny suburban expanse glided in, AirPods in ears, to pick up a drink from the counter they pre-ordered on the app. Forget saying “thank you” — most of them didn’t even acknowledge there was another human in the room. It was everything the private equity firms think we want: Seamless. Soulless. Sameness.

But I noticed something else during my jet-lagged visits to CBTL. In the middle of the establishment, at the sole table that could sit more than two people, a group of retirement-age men seemed to gather each morning around 8am. Some days it was two or three guys, the most I saw was around seven. Though I strenuously eavesdropped, I couldn’t quite grasp if there was some organizing theme to their gathering. But whatever the reason, they all seemed to be happily, willingly, repeatedly there.

As the trip went on, their presence started to feel a little defiant to me, rebellious even. Right in the middle of this coffee chain that was actively encouraging them not to be there, they kept coming back.

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A funny thing happens when you start writing about a particular theme or topic: People expect that you are an expert on it. It’s usually the opposite. I frequently start writing about things because I don’t know anything about them, or it’s a concept or question that I need to figure out for myself.

So it has been with this project of community, care, and building a village. As I’ve done a lot more research, interviews, and had casual conversations about this topic, my motivation has been as much about finding the tangible stuff that I can offer readers, as it has finding things I can use myself.

And during my trip to the US, I was reminded why this is all so necessary. The US has a way of highlighting the themes or trends that are prevalent across the western world and displaying them 10X. I saw with renewed clarity how the world we’ve built — the cars, the consumption, the convenience — actively and intentionally drains people from our everyday lives.

In short, I was reminded of what we’re up against. Which is why today I want to share a kind of formula that I’ve noted in my conversations and research on building a village.

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First, a quick reminder that our primary focus isn’t looking for friends here — we’re looking for people. This mindset shift lowers the barriers to entry a little bit. Acquaintances, neighbors, people you don’t have a ton in common with but may have reason to see regularly, people who know your name, people you feel comfortable asking a favor from because you know you can reciprocate one day, people who unexpectedly lift your spirits on a bad day because they happen to be there.

People can certainly turn into friends — as one reader wisely noted in a prior post, “quantity time leads to quality time” — but in order for that to happen naturally, I’ve realized you have to orient your life so you can keep showing up to see them.

But show up where? That is the question so many people have, and that’s where this quasi formula comes in. I’ve noticed that the best spaces to get more people into your life tend to have a few things in common:

• They are free or low cost, which helps removes a classist or elitist element.

• They are repeating, recurring activities that don’t require a ton of scheduling in advance.

• They are centered around a shared interest or need, which could be as specific as a hobby, as broad as a place or park, or as simple as the need to eat dinner.

• They are relatively local to where you live.

All of these elements mean you don’t need a lot of money, brain space, time, effort, or prior context to be there. In fact, once you get one of these places into your life and schedule, it shouldn’t take a lot of work to keep it there.

Take one example from a New York Times piece about what Americans can learn from fitness trends around the world. I was mildly surprised when I saw an example from the UK on this list, but as I read on, it made sense. Parkrun is a timed Saturday morning 5K race that happens in parks all over the UK. And culturally, it is indeed a thing – lots of people I know here participate in it, and not just in London.

The piece explains how it grew from a single gathering in a south London park 20 years ago to one that’s hosted in 2,500 places around the UK and world:

Some participants run fast, while others go for a leisurely stroll. The magic comes from the simplicity, consistency and community, said Russ Jefferys, the chief executive of Parkrun. Crucially, it’s always free. After the finish, many runners and walkers share coffee or breakfast nearby.

“You don’t necessarily have to participate every week,” Mr. Jefferys said. “Sometimes life gets in the way. But whenever you’re ready, it’s always there.”

In my own life, I’ve seen this exact dynamic play out to great effect at the toddler group I take my son to every Wednesday morning. It’s hosted in a local church hall and run by a group of elderly female churchgoing volunteers. (The first time you go, they ask you about attending church, then they mostly drop it.) All the toys seem to be from the 1980s and 90s, and the setup is such that I can stay relatively uninvolved in my child’s play and instead talk to adults, which is ideal.

Before I had a kid, if you told me my social life would be largely dependent on a 90 minute session in a church hall on a Wednesday morning, I would have point-blank told you that’s why I don't want to have children. But therein lies some of the secret! The places that fit the aforementioned formula usually aren’t cool, if you know what I mean. They may not be aesthetically pleasing or aspirational. They often exist outside of your algorithmic sphere.

Indeed it’s notable that I did not discover this group online, but rather when I pushed the stroller past a sign outside the church right after we moved here. I didn’t go in that day — I was too nervous! — but went the next week, and basically never stopped. And the joke is on me, because most of the friends I have made since we moved last April can be traced back to this Wednesday group. The place acts as a kind of hub, serving as the basis for other plans, introductions, connections, and invitations. If life gets busy, and I miss a couple weeks, there’s no big effort to get back into it: Whenever you’re ready, it’s always there.

Another example of this formula in practice comes from a popular piece by

Amanda Litman

, perfectly titled: “Everyone is lonely but no one can hang out.” Early this year, Litman and her husband decided that every Saturday night they are in town, they will invite someone over for dinner. Simple, yet also somehow brave.

We needed to put some structure around this and create a regular container for the kind of hanging out we used to do in our 20s that built the friendships that lasted.

Thus, Saturday night dinners.

The goal is to make it easy for people to say yes. If they aren’t free this Saturday, great, we’re hosting again next Saturday. Aren’t free then? Good news, there are more Saturdays.

No one needs to get a babysitter or shell out money for dinner at a restaurant. Just come over, BYOB, and hang out for a few hours. It’s as low stakes and low cost as it can be.

Similarly, quite a few readers with grown-up children have replied to my writing saying that when they had little kids, they too created these “regular containers,” as Litman aptly calls them. I love this one:

Thirty or even twenty years ago, this all would have seemed quite obvious. Is it really revolutionary to remind people to have local clubs, groups, and hangouts to show up to on a semi-weekly basis that don’t cost a lot of money? Unfortunately, in the context of the private equity simulation we increasingly live in, the answer is: yes, it is.

This function used to be filled by churches, sports leagues, civic groups and even restaurants and bars — all things that are on the decline in what Derek Thompson of The Atlantic recently dubbed The Anti Social Century. We now have to be actively on the look out for ways to connect. We have to act counter-culturally to this moment.

If you adopt that attitude, I think the potential to find these kinds of spaces exists in a lot of places. A community garden, a choir, a trivia night, a volunteer opportunity, a tango class, a recurring monthly pub meet-up. And if, like Litman, you have the energy and capacity to create such a space — imagine what you will be offering other people! In my opinion, this is the kind of politics we need right now. Go ahead and ignore the news if it means you gain the capacity to gather people together IRL in a repeating, low effort way.

It’s true that finding and existing in these spaces can feel vulnerable and hard at first. It may take some trial and error. I certainly was nervous the first few times I went to toddler group and didn’t know anyone. I actively forced myself to keep going and introducing myself to people each time I did. Since I had already begun writing about this topic, I knew it might require some effort and discomfort on my part.

In fact, I’m finding this quiet stubbornness is a really helpful attitude. Yes, this is harder than it should be. Yes, much of our built environment and economy is stacked against us. Yes, some people seem entirely disinterested in this kind of connection. But if you push past that, if you stay vigilant against your avoidance and inertia, if you keep coming back, you get something like the retired dudes in the sterile Coffee Bean: joyful in their quiet act of rebellion. And you get to lead the way for others to do the same.

I would love it if readers use the comments to crowdsource some ideas. Do you have a space like this in your life? Do you have an idea for creating one? Where should we keep coming back to?

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