People With Good Friends & Even Better Lives Often Do 5 Hard Things In Such An Easy Way
Peopleimages | Canva First, a disclaimer: I rarely, if ever, write prescriptive self-help stories. The very term “self-help” makes me reflexively cringe. Like many of you, I have grown weary of an industry that profits from cloaking systemic issues as individual problems that can be solved with the right set of scripts or steps, and all for the low price of $14.99 (if you act now)!
That’s not to say I spend all day wringing my hands over the myriad social problems I cannot solve. Just part of the day. The rest of the day I dedicate to what is within my grasp. The key, as the ever-wise serenity prayer reminds us, is being able to distinguish between the two.
I have no doubt that loneliness — much like marital misery and parental exhaustion — is a systemic problem. We navigate built environments designed for cars and consumerism, not for meaningful human interaction. Our economic, legal, and social systems are structured around isolated nuclear family units, not extended networks of support. Meanwhile, Big Tech is granted full leeway to fuel and profit from our isolation, depression, and anxiety.
Loneliness is becoming our social default. A poll conducted by the American Psychological Association found that over half of adults (54%) report feeling isolated and “nearly seven in 10 (69%) said they needed more emotional support in the past year than they received.” Contrary to popular opinion, most studies don’t find that men are disproportionately suffering from loneliness, but younger people are; 22% of people under 50 report feeling lonely “often” versus 9% of people over 50.
As we bemoan this rampant loneliness, I’ve found myself feeling both empathetic and impatient. Because while we can’t transform our built environments, family structures, or screen-time dependencies overnight, we are also behaving as though loneliness is an epidemic with no known cure.
For the vast majority of human history, loneliness hasn’t really been a thing. Up until the late 1600s, in fact, the words “loneliness” and “lonely” hardly ever appeared in writing — it simply wasn’t a well-understood human experience. In fact, as English Professor Amelia Worsley shares in the fascinating article linked above:
In 1674, the naturalist John Ray compiled a glossary of infrequently used words. He included “loneliness” in his list, defining it as a term used to describe places and people “far from neighbors.”
The social isolation of modern life is very real, and it’s increasing by the day. I am one of the many contemporary mothers who have spent years pining for a “village” and who, until quite recently, believed that attempting to assemble my own village would be an exercise in futility.
In my recent story, “The Question My Husband Asked That Made Me Question Everything,” I shared how lonely I felt in my marriage, even when surrounded by the people who purported to love me most. I often daydreamed about a mythical village of alloparents, in which our social lives revolved around a commons, caretaking was a communal endeavor, kids roamed freely outside, and no one ever had to monitor their screen time or shuttle them to soccer practice.
I still often daydream about this mythical village. I have spiraled down many an internet rabbit hole, salivating over photos of intentional communities and co-housing complexes. I have talked often with my friends, family, and partner about buying land and building a circle of tiny homes with a main house at the center.
It could happen someday. But it ain’t going to happen today. So, is my only choice to be lonely in the meantime?
In a word, no. Two years after my separation and one year after my divorce, I can report that I rarely feel lonely anymore. That could change, I know. People move, people die, relationships evolve in unexpected ways. In eight short, long years, I may be an empty nester — that is, unless my son follows through on his current plans to live with me until he’s 35. Who knows how I’ll adapt to future seasons of my life?
But I don’t feel particularly lonely now, even though all the loneliness cards are stacked in my favor. I’m a divorced, middle-aged woman who no longer has access to the married-couple dinner party circuit. I have two older kids who have become stingy in the hug department, and who mostly rely on me for rides, spending money, and occasional dinners together when our schedules allow. My first family lives 530 miles away, and my romantic partner lives on the opposite coast.
I have a full-time paying job, which I mostly work remotely from my basement. Between my paid work and my unpaid evening chauffeuring shifts, I have very little time for social activities. I have very little energy, too. Although I am no longer the painfully shy child I once was, I am still highly introverted, and I need to be highly intentional about recharging.
So if I have managed to be less lonely, I believe that you can, too. And no, this isn’t a rigid prescription. It’s a list of mix-and-match suggestions that you can adapt to your life circumstances.
People with good friends and even better lives often do a few things that seem hard but aren't:
1. Prioritize friendships with people in walking distance
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We live in a world where a single brunch meetup can entail weeks’ worth of scheduling and rescheduling. It’s friggin’ exhausting. My focus since my divorce has been all about prioritizing the friendships that require the least amount of effort.
I have a loose network of friends all over my city and beyond, but I pour the vast majority of my social energy into the three friends who live within walking distance. Seeing them requires relatively little coordination, as does asking for and offering help. My friend without a car can just walk over to my place and take mine to run errands. My friend who lives around the corner from my CSA pickup can get my veggies when my schedule doesn’t allow.
The key, I’ve found, to being less lonely is to lower the social bar. I don’t need to host parties or make elaborate plans. Sometimes I run errands with my friends. Sometimes they sit on my porch for 15 minutes while they’re waiting for the bus that stops at the end of my street. So many low-key social opportunities are made possible by having friends who are just there.
2. Make more small talk
That said, not everyone has to be my friend. More and more these days, we seem to operate under the bizarre assumption that the only relationships worth having are those that entail baring our souls.
Research suggests that “brief but warm exchanges” with strangers and acquaintances contribute to our sense of happiness. It’s wonderful to find emotional intimacy with another person, but there’s a lot to be said for acquaintanceships, too. Someone can add value to your life, and you can add value to theirs, without reaching the coveted status of “friend.”
During our last ice storm in Portland, Oregon, during which we lost power for over 48 hours and the temperature in our home descended to 41 degrees, I had a bit of a revelation: If the end of the world is upon us, I really need to know my neighbors. I had this revelation as I was sipping coffee and watching my neighbor fry sausages from the farmer’s market. She lived just across the street but was in a different power grid. I could not have been more grateful for the hot coffee and the smell of sizzling sausages. And I could finally feel my fingers again.
I didn’t know this neighbor particularly well. She is in her 70s, living the life I hope to live in my 70s, and I run by her house every morning. Occasionally we chat when she’s out gardening. At one point we exchanged phone numbers, and we checked in with one another during the aforementioned ice storm.
She is one of many neighbors I wouldn’t mind knowing better. In fact, there are a lot of neighbors I wouldn’t mind knowing better. I often wish I could be more proactive about “making friends” with them, but the gulf between small talk and friendship seems intimidating and unbridgeable. That said, of the 20 houses on my street, I’m on a small-talk basis with neighbors in at least 10 of them, which means a lot of opportunities for “brief but warm exchanges” on a daily basis.
If you’re like me and struggle to initiate small talk, I highly recommend organizing a neighborhood block party to break the ice. I’ve now hosted three, and though it’s always a social stretch for me, it’s far less daunting than it may sound. I was very much a Little Red Hen about the first block party I organized because I was scared to delegate, but now it’s a group effort. When people are trusted to contribute, I’ve found, they often have a way of stepping up.
3. Meander around the neighborhood
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Here’s an obvious statement of fact: We’re not going to positively interact with people while we’re driving alone in our cars. Maybe we’ll curse other drivers under our breath or give the occasional middle finger. If you’re anything like me, driving might make you hate people just a little more.
Walking, I’ve found, has the opposite effect. The “weak-tie” relationships that can be so key to our life satisfaction don’t have to involve talking. I have never had a direct verbal exchange with most of the parents and children who comprise the biking school bus that I pass while walking my son to school. I wave at them, and the sight of these parents, mostly dads, leisurely pedaling and chatting while their kids shriek and furiously pump their legs, brings me a surge of joy each morning.
Lately, I have been challenging myself to say “good morning” to at least one stranger during this morning walk. It’s really hard for me. For some reason, I’m terrified that they won’t say “good morning” back. Sometimes, they don’t. But when they do, we both walk away feeling just a little better.
During the summer, I missed my twice-daily walk to and from school, so I forced myself to take advantage of the lingering evenings and walk after dinner. Sometimes my kids accompanied me, but usually not. I didn’t always feel up for walking, but I never once regretted it after the fact. I frequently passed a man on his porch who played the harmonica — quite beautifully, I might add. I also passed a woman who sang to herself while watering her front yard. Their melodies filled me with rich melancholy.
Walking — whether in the evening, morning, or anytime in-between — helps me feel rooted to the particular rhythms of the people who surround me.
4. Plan and/or find regularly recurring social events
“Let’s hang out soon!” has become the social mantra of our day. But “soon” rarely ever arrives. I have been saying this to one friend all year; she lives 20 minutes away by car. I am going to see her tonight for the first time since last October.
Even my friends within walking distance can be ships passing in the night. That’s why we’ve prioritized a Wednesday-night “porch hang” at my place — the type of hangout that Substack author Katherine Goldstein calls “deep casual” (I love that term!). These weekly hangouts motivate me to clean my bathroom and buy wine that doesn’t come in a box. That is about the extent of my preparation. And while we generally exchange some texts the day of, there is very little planning involved.
I’m not into “life hacks,” but if there’s one so-called hack I’ll recommend, it’s regular hangouts at regular times. My parents have mastered this art, and I’m grateful they modeled it for me. Growing up, I knew that Wednesday meant my dad’s men’s group, Thursday meant my parents’ Joseph Campbell discussion group, and Sunday morning meant my mom’s middle-aged women’s bike group.
Yes, life sometimes gets in the way. My friends and I haven’t been able to do our Wednesday hangs since the start of my daughter’s basketball season and have had to plan ad hoc hangouts instead. But generally speaking, we’ve kept our weekly porch hang going for most of the last eight-plus years.
Whether it’s dinner, evening wine, a walk, or a game night, put it on the calendar at the same cadence, time, and place. It’s one less thing to plan.
5. Join a 12-step recovery group
Speaking of a regular cadence, time, and place, it is difficult for me to overstate just how much my 12-step recovery group has kept me tethered during a very volatile season of my life. Every Tuesday, I gather with fellow group members in a church basement at 7 p.m. There is no coordination; I just show up. In the three-plus years since I started attending, the in-person meeting has only been canceled once — during the beast of an ice storm I mentioned above.
I have already written about the power of 12-step recovery, along with some common misconceptions about it, but for the purposes of this story, I will say that it’s much more inclusive than most people realize. First, you don’t have to be an alcoholic to qualify. I attend Al-Anon, for friends and family of alcoholics, and the only qualification for Co-Dependents Anonymous is a “desire for healthy and loving relationships.”
At first, as someone who is wary of organized religion, I was put off by the many references to God (with He/Him pronouns) in the opening readings, and while I’m of the strong personal opinion that they should update this language, 12-step recovery bills itself very clearly as a “spiritual program” for people of any religious affiliation or none. Most people in my home group are not church-going people and practice spirituality in vastly varied ways.
The benefits of 12-step recovery are precisely what we don’t get from therapy: continual reminders of our shared pain and shared hope. No one in my group can solve my problems for me, but everyone can help lighten their weight simply by virtue of listening and sharing their own. I always leave meetings feeling a little better — usually a lot better — than when I came in.
Our society often weaponizes fear of loneliness to deter couples, particularly women, from getting divorced. It was my recovery group that gave me the strength to initially request a separation. That’s because I no longer feared being alone. I knew that no matter what happened, I’d always have this group. Or if not this particular group, another group. And in-between meetings, in moments of despair and desperation, I’d always have the phone numbers of everyone in it, too.
I have some level of professional expertise in user experience, and you could say that my mission over the past few years has been to improve the user experience of my own social life. Because let’s face it: the UX of modern life sucks.
The technology that has promised to make our lives easier and strengthen our social connections has had precisely the opposite effect. We are continually overwhelmed by incoming messages from myriad sources, and yet, despite the overabundance of communication methods we have at our disposal, we can barely find the time or energy to interact with people in ways that fill our cup.
Meanwhile, our economy extracts our labor, and in return, most of us get just enough, or not quite enough, to get by. Single people get sucked into the black hole of dating apps; married people get sucked into the black hole of marriage. We’re stressed out, distracted, busy, and perennially anxious.
Yes, it takes intentionality, time, and energy to invest in nearby friendships, to plan a block party, to go on a daily walk, to attend a weekly social event, or to prioritize a weekly group meeting. Sometimes it’s time and energy we simply don’t have. But also, let’s remember, this labor isn’t extractive — it’s regenerative. The more you invest in it, the more it gives back, and the more you reduce the friction of investing in this labor, the more you can invest over time.
The number one rule of good user experience is, “Don’t make me think!” I don’t want to have to think too much about my social life; as much as possible, I want it to just happen. I’ve successfully woven daily walks, weekly hangouts and group meetings, and annual block parties into my routine. None of these demands a soul-sucking morass of text messages, and they all take place within 1.5 miles of my home.
Am I perfectly satisfied with my village? No, not at all. I wish my community ties were stronger. I wish parenting felt more like a group effort. I wish my first family lived closer. I wish the distance in my long-distance romance wasn’t quite so long. I wish my job didn’t demand so much of my time and involved more human interaction. I wish I had more discretionary income. I wish my kids’ social lives and my social life weren’t so separate. I wish there were more opportunities for multigenerational gatherings.
I still daydream a lot about my mythical, maybe someday tiny-home community. Hey, a girl can dream. But in the meantime, a girl can also take a walk, say good morning, or run an errand with a friend.
Kerala Goodkin is an award-winning writer and co-owner of a worker-owned marketing agency. Her weekly stories are dedicated to interrupting notions of what it means to be a mother, woman, worker, and wife. She writes on Medium and has recently launched a Substack publication, Life Beyond Marriage.
