The Archive
Everything we have published
179 articles · page 4 of 6
March 20253
Life Changes
What Actually Happens to Your Social Life When You Move
Moving doesn't just remove people from your life, it removes the machinery that made friendship happen without effort. Here's how to rebuild that machinery on purpose.
Work & Remote Life
After a Breakup, Your Friend Group Might Need Rebuilding Too
A new study on college students rebuilding social ties after the pandemic has a lesson for anyone whose social circle came apart along with a relationship: quality and regularity of contact matter more than starting from scratch.
Work & Remote Life
When to Stop Trying With a Work Friend Group That Isn't Working
Some workplace social groups never quite open up, no matter how many lunches you show up to. Here's how to tell the difference between a slow start and a closed door, and where to put your effort instead.
February 20254
Family & Parents
Twelve Months of Showing Up to the Same Playgroup: What It Actually Bought
A year of small, repeated effort with the same handful of parents doesn't produce a friend group overnight. Here's what it produces instead, and why the timeline matters.
Tools & Apps
What a Text Thread Can and Cannot Do For You
Online contact keeps existing relationships alive better than it builds new ones. The research on remote work, group chats, and loneliness explains why, and what to do differently.
The Science
Apps Solve Being Alone. They Don't Solve Being Lonely.
Isolation and loneliness are measured differently and respond to different fixes. A look at what Meetup, Timeleft, and Buffet actually change, and what they leave untouched.
Places to Go
Apps That Try to Get You in a Room With Someone
Meetup, Timeleft, and Buffet all promise to turn an empty evening into a plan. Here's what each one actually does, and where each one leaves you on your own.
January 20257
Digital Life
The Real Cost of Showing Up
Socializing has a price tag most people don't add up until it's stopping them from going. Here's what that costs, and where the free version still exists.
The Science
Why Asking Someone to Hang Out Feels Like an Imposition
The feeling that reaching out will burden someone else is one of the biggest blocks to making plans. Here's why it's usually wrong, and what to do instead of waiting for it to pass.
Tools & Apps
Why It's Always You Who Sends the Text
The group chat needs someone to pick the date and the place. Research on friendship, community, and the collapse of shared spaces explains why that job keeps falling to the same person — and what actually lightens it.
Family & Parents
You Moved. Now What Do You Do About the Neighbours
A national survey found lonely people are twice as likely to have never spoken to a neighbour. For anyone who has just moved with kids in tow, that's the single most useful fact in the research.
Work & Remote Life
The Friends Remote Work Quietly Dropped, and How to Pick Them Back Up
Working from home didn't just remove a commute. It removed the people you used to see without trying. Here's a concrete way to get specific people back.
Making Friends
What to Actually Say: Scripts for the Awkward Moments of Making Friends
Exact lines for the moments that stall friendships before they start — asking someone to hang out, following up after silence, and ending a hangout without it feeling like rejection.
Life Changes
The Third Place Was Never Just About the Coffee
Ray Oldenburg's idea of the third place explains why a café or bar can cure loneliness — but only under conditions most modern versions of it no longer meet.
December 20245
Making Friends
Volunteering Actually Helped Lonely Older Adults. Here's the Trial That Tested It
A randomised trial in Hong Kong tested whether volunteering reduces loneliness in older adults, instead of just assuming it. What it found says something useful about which activities actually work.
Work & Remote Life
The Real Time Cost of Making a Friend, and Where to Find It
Making friends as an adult with a full week is not a motivation problem. It is a scheduling problem, and it responds to scheduling solutions.
Digital Life
The Algorithm Picks Your Table: What That Actually Gets You
Buffet and Timeleft both promise to match you with strangers worth meeting. Here's what the matching actually does, and what it can't.
Work & Remote Life
When Your Schedule Isn't Your Own, Isolation and Loneliness Split Apart
A new study separates being alone from feeling lonely, and finds the relationship shifts with age. For anyone whose hours are controlled by shift work, caregiving, or a baby, that split matters more than usual.
Life Changes
What to Do When a Friendship Has No Reason to Happen Anymore
When a friendship loses its built-in occasion — the shared office, the school gate, the same city — it needs a replacement structure. Here's what actually holds it together, and what doesn't.
November 20245
The Science
How Much Time Does Friendship Actually Need?
There's a specific hour count behind the idea that friendship takes time to build. Here's what the research says, and what actually fits into a normal week.
Making Friends
Rebuilding a Social Life After a Breakup
When a relationship ends, you often lose a social system, not just a person. What the research says about which friendships survive, why the fourth month is harder than the first, and what to actually schedule.
Places to Go
What a Volunteering Trial Actually Found About Loneliness
A rare randomised trial tested whether volunteering reduces loneliness in older adults. The result is more specific, and more useful, than the usual advice to 'get involved.'
Tools & Apps
What Going Remote Actually Takes Away
Remote work doesn't just remove a commute. It removes the dozens of small, unplanned conversations that used to make up most of a person's social contact — and no app replaces them the same way.
Family & Parents
What to Actually Say When You Want to Ask a Parent Friend to Hang Out
Specific lines for the specific moments that stop new parents from turning small talk at the playground into an actual friendship, and why the awkwardness is worth pushing through.
October 20245
The Science
The Loneliness Signal Isn't About How Much Time You Spend Alone
Loneliness and social isolation are measured as separate things in the research, with separate risk profiles. Knowing which one you actually have changes what helps.
Family & Parents
How to Reach Out to a Friend You Have Not Spoken to in Years
Reconnecting with an old friend after a long silence feels riskier than it is. A practical guide to the actual message, and why the awkwardness fades faster than you expect.
Life Changes
When to Stop Trying With a Group That Isn't Working
How to tell the difference between a friend group that needs more time and one that's a dead end, and why the sunk-cost feeling makes this so hard to see clearly.
Digital Life
The Friendship Apps Are Solving the Wrong Problem
Most social apps are built to introduce you to someone new. The evidence says that's not what turns a stranger into a friend — seeing the same person again and again is.
Tools & Apps
Month One, Month Six, Month Twelve: What Actually Changes
A practical timeline for what a year of consistent, low-effort socializing actually produces, using the tools available for finding a recurring group and staying in it.
September 20241
Life Changes
What Texting Actually Does For Your Social Life, and What It Can't Do
Online contact keeps existing relationships alive cheaply and well. It does not build new ones, and it cannot replace the specific thing that happens when two bodies are in the same room.