There’s Never Been a Better Time to Make a New Friend (Really)
You’re not the only person who’s eager to reconnect
Early last year, I went on a first friend-date with a woman who lived in my neighborhood. We’d determined a mutual affinity for rude jokes on Twitter, and decided to take our potential friendship to the next level. It was a little awkward, as all first dates tend to be, but we had a rapport. We made loose plans to hang out again soon, and it seemed plausible that we’d follow through on them — though truthfully, it was just as likely that we’d let things fizzle out, the way so many budding potential friendships do.
At any rate, you can guess where this is going. Within a week, the world shut down. As my mental health began to decline in those early days of the pandemic, I knew better than to subject myself to anyone but my partner and a tiny cluster of very old friends, the latter almost exclusively by text. This was not the time for first impressions.
And so that second date never happened. Nearly a year later, my minuscule friend-cluster remains more or less the same.
This year has taken an ongoing toll on casual friendships. The Atlantic writer Amanda Mull recently described feeling a swell of unexpected longing when she watched a scene set in a crowded sports bar, on the…
