The Archive
Everything we have published
182 articles · page 6 of 7
January 20242
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 20234
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.
Life Changes
Why Doing Something Beats Talking to Someone
A look at Meetup and activity-based groups versus conversation-first ways of meeting people, and why the shared task tends to work when small talk doesn't.
Work & Remote Life
What Happens to Your Friends When a Relationship Ends
A breakup doesn't just cost you a partner. It often costs you a social circle, a Saturday routine, and the people who used to invite you places — and working from home makes the gap harder to notice until it's already wide.
Places to Go
The Habit That Works Is Just Going Back
The single most useful thing you can do about loneliness is unglamorous: attend the same recurring thing on the same day, on purpose, for weeks. Here's what that looks like using Meetup, a library programme, or a run club, and where each one falls apart.
November 20234
Making Friends
The WHO Just Called Loneliness a Global Priority. Here's What That Means If You Have No Free Time
The WHO's new Commission on Social Connection treats loneliness as a public health issue everywhere, not just for people with spare evenings. Here's what that shift actually means for someone whose schedule isn't their own.
The Science
Making Friends When You Don't Control Your Own Calendar
A look at Meetup, Nextdoor, and the plain old third place, judged against a specific problem: what happens to a schedule-based social life when your schedule isn't yours to set.
Tools & Apps
When Making Friends Costs Money You Don't Have
Most advice about meeting people assumes a budget for classes, drinks, and dinners out. Here's how to build a social life around free and near-free structures instead.
Life Changes
You Don't Need to Click With Someone to Become Friends
The idea that real friendship requires instant chemistry is one of the biggest obstacles to making friends as an adult. The research points the other way: friendship is mostly built by repetition, not sparked by a click.
October 20233
Life Changes
When It's Time to Stop Chasing One Friend Group
A new global survey found most people feel socially connected overall. That's a useful reminder that loneliness is often about one relationship or group, not everything at once — and sometimes the right move is to stop trying with it.
Making Friends
How To Text Someone You Haven't Spoken To In Three Years
Reconnecting with people you have drifted from is usually easier than making new friends, and almost nobody tries it. Why the drift happened, why the message feels impossible, and what to actually send.
Family & Parents
What a Year of Showing Up Actually Gets You
A practical case for treating friendship as a slow accumulation rather than a project with a deadline, aimed at parents whose social life shrank when the baby arrived.
September 20233
Digital Life
What Meetup Actually Does, and What It Doesn't
Meetup is built on the one finding that matters most for loneliness — repetition beats novelty. But the app has real gaps, and knowing them changes how you should use it.
Tools & Apps
Why You're Always the One Who Organises
If you're the friend who sends the group text and books the table, an app won't fix that. Here's what will actually spread the load, and what to try when it doesn't.
The Science
What the Heart Association Actually Found About Loneliness
The American Heart Association's 2022 scientific statement put a number on what loneliness does to your heart. Here's what the number means and what it doesn't.
August 20231
Making Friends
Why Late August Is the Best Week to Fix Your Autumn
Schools, leagues, and workplaces all reboot at once in September. That reset is a rare piece of free structure — and most people let it pass without using it.
June 20232
Life Changes
Why Doing Something Beats Talking About Something
Shared activity removes the pressure of conversation and gives people a reason to see each other again. Here's how to pick one and actually keep going.
Work & Remote Life
What to Actually Say When You Want to See Someone Again
Practical scripts for the specific moments that stall a work-from-home social life: asking a colleague to lunch, inviting someone twice, and saying you're lonely out loud.
May 20233
Family & Parents
What the Parenting Group Chat Actually Does For You
Online spaces for parents are good at solving specific, urgent problems. They are much worse at solving the slower problem of being alone most days.
The Science
The Surgeon General Just Called Loneliness an Epidemic. Here Is What That Actually Means.
An 81-page federal advisory landed last week comparing loneliness to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The comparison is real, and it is also more complicated than the headline.
Tools & Apps
The Friendship That Lost Its Structure
The Surgeon General's advisory landed on Tuesday and made the case that disconnection is a health problem. Here is the smaller problem underneath it: what to do about a friend you like and never see, once school, work, or the neighbourhood stops putting you in the same room.
April 20233
Digital Life
How Much Time Loneliness Actually Costs, and How Much It Actually Needs
The obstacle to a social life is rarely motivation. It's the arithmetic of a week that has no slot left over. Here's what the research suggests actually fits.
Places to Go
Does the Coffee Shop Still Work as a Third Place
The corner coffee shop was supposed to be the classic informal gathering spot. Laptops changed that. Here's what still works about it, and what a person actually has to do to get anything social out of it.
Life Changes
The Data Point Nobody Warns New Parents About
A 2021 Harvard survey found 51% of mothers with young children report serious loneliness. The reasons are structural, not personal, and they point to what actually helps.
March 20231
The Science
A Japanese Study Tracked Loneliness Over the Pandemic. It Has Something to Say to Anyone Who Just Moved
A new longitudinal study from Japan shows who becomes isolated over time and who doesn't. The pattern matters for anyone starting over in a new city.
February 20233
Work & Remote Life
The Same Café, the Same Day: Does It Actually Work?
Working from the same café on the same day every week is one of the most-repeated pieces of remote-work advice. Here's what it actually does, and what it can't do.
The Science
Why Weekday Evenings Are the Hardest Part of Being Lonely
Weekends get the social effort. Weekday evenings get whatever is left, which is usually nothing. Here's why that gap is structurally difficult, and what actually fills it.
Tools & Apps
Alone Is Not the Same Problem as Lonely
A practical way to tell whether an evening by yourself is rest or a warning sign, and why the fix for one makes the other worse.
January 20231
Making Friends
The Gap Between Wanting To See People And Actually Asking Them
Most people who feel lonely are not short on desire. They are stuck at the point of asking. Here is what that gap is made of, and the smallest thing that reliably closes it.