The Archive
Everything we have published
179 articles · page 5 of 6
September 20244
Family & Parents
The School Gate Only Stays Open for So Long
September gives parents a short window where making a friend at drop-off is normal, not weird. Here's how to actually use it before it closes.
Work & Remote Life
Does Working From the Same Coffee Shop Actually Help With Loneliness?
A close look at the habit of working remotely from the same café at the same time each week — why the mechanism behind it is sound, and where it quietly fails.
The Science
The First Ten Weeks in a New Place
Moving somewhere new doesn't make you lonely by accident. It removes your entire social infrastructure at once. Here is what to rebuild first, and in what order.
Places to Go
How to Ask Without It Feeling Like a Favor
The thing that stops most invitations isn't shyness. It's the belief that asking is an imposition. Here's how to make the ask small enough that it isn't.
August 20242
Making Friends
The Gap Between Wanting a Friend and Texting One
Wanting connection and being able to act on it are two different skills. A practical guide to closing the gap when social anxiety is what stands in the way.
Work & Remote Life
Why a Class Beats a Conversation
If small talk with strangers makes you freeze, meeting through a shared activity solves a different problem entirely. A practical guide to finding one that actually recurs.
July 20243
The Science
Why Tuesday Night Is the Hardest Night to Fix
Weekday evenings are where American social life actually collapsed. Here's what the time-use data shows, and why a recurring Tuesday plan beats another open invitation.
Family & Parents
Does the Playground Still Work as a Place to Meet Other Parents
Playgrounds were built for exactly this. Here's why they often fail as a place to meet other parents anyway, and what to do instead.
Life Changes
The Price Tag Nobody Mentions When They Tell You to Get Out More
A look at what it actually costs, in dollars, to build a social life as an adult — and which tools and routes work at different price points.
June 20244
Digital Life
The Report Everyone Missed: Remote Workers Are Lonelier, and Someone Is Always Doing the Inviting
Gallup's new workplace report shows remote and hybrid employees are lonelier than people on-site. It also points at a quieter problem: the informal social contact that used to just happen now has to be organised by someone, and it's usually the same someone.
Making Friends
Summer Makes Loneliness Worse for the People You'd Least Expect
New CDC surveillance data on loneliness landed last week. Read alongside what's known about summer's social rhythms, it points to a specific, fixable gap: the season that looks most social is often the one with the least routine contact.
Work & Remote Life
The Coffee Shop as Office: Does It Actually Fix the Loneliness of Working From Home
Working from a cafe feels less isolating than working from a kitchen table. The research on third places suggests why that feeling is real, and why it usually stops short of friendship.
Making Friends
Why Asking Someone to Hang Out Feels Like Asking for a Favor
Reaching out first feels like imposing on someone else's time, but the research on loneliness suggests the other person is waiting too. What to do with that.
May 20243
Digital Life
The Weekday Evening Problem
Weekday evenings are where loneliness actually lives — too tired to plan, too late to start, too many hours before bed. Here's what changes that.
Places to Go
How to Reach Out to a Friend You've Drifted From
Drifting apart usually isn't a falling out. Here's why the first message feels so hard, and a specific way to make it easy to say yes to.
Life Changes
What A Year Of Small Effort Actually Gets You
A look at what happens if you keep showing up to the same low-key thing for a year, rather than searching for a single transformative fix.
April 20244
Making Friends
What the Neighbour Study Actually Found, and What to Do With It
A 2018 AARP survey found a stark gap in loneliness between people who talk to their neighbours and people who never do. Here's what that number can and can't tell you, and how to close the gap.
Digital Life
Alone Is Not the Same as Lonely
Being by yourself and feeling lonely are measured differently, caused differently, and fixed differently. Confusing them leads to the wrong solution.
Family & Parents
Why Making Friends Costs More Than It Used To
Socialising has a price tag most advice ignores: babysitters, entry fees, the cost of leaving the house at all. For parents especially, that price is the actual barrier.
The Science
The Friendship That Has No Reason to Happen Anymore
When college, a shared office, or a shared street stops arranging your friendships for you, keeping a friendship alive takes something more deliberate than affection.
March 20242
Work & Remote Life
When You Want People But Can't Make Yourself Ask
Remote work removed the low-stakes contact that used to happen without effort. For people with social anxiety, that gap doesn't get filled by wanting it filled — it gets filled by dread.
Tools & Apps
What Going Remote Actually Takes Away, and How to Replace It
Working from home doesn't just remove a commute. It removes the low-effort, repeated contact that built most of your social life without you noticing. Here's how to rebuild it on purpose.
February 20243
Life Changes
How Much Time Does Making Friends Actually Take
A look at what a Meetup group, a Timeleft dinner, and a library programme actually cost you in hours per week, and which one survives a bad week.
The Science
What a Text Actually Does for You, and What It Doesn't
Texting a friend feels like connection, and in a small way it is. But the research on loneliness and health points to something texting can't do. Here's the practical version of the distinction.
Making Friends
What Happens When You Stop Being the One Who Organises
If you're always the one sending the group text, here's why that's exhausting, what it's quietly costing you, and how to hand some of it back without losing the friendships.
January 20244
Family & Parents
What to Actually Say to the Other Parents at Pickup
Exact phrases for the specific moments that stop new parent friendships before they start — the good conversation you don't follow up on, the invite you can't do, the ask that feels too forward.
Work & Remote Life
Meetup vs. Timeleft: Which One Actually Gets You Out of the House
A practical comparison of Meetup and Timeleft for remote workers trying to rebuild an in-person routine, including where each one quietly fails.
Digital Life
When to Stop Trying With a Particular Group
How to tell whether a group you keep showing up to is warming up or has already decided, and what to do instead of waiting to find out.
Tools & Apps
You Just Moved. Here's the Actual Order of Operations
Moving to a new city breaks your social life quietly, not all at once. A practical order for rebuilding it, starting with the thing that actually works: seeing the same people repeatedly.
December 20231
Family & Parents
The Myth That Having a Baby Makes You Less Lonely
New parents are often told a baby will fill their social life. The evidence says the opposite happens to a lot of parents, and the reason is about the difference between contact and connection.