FIND AND KEEP NEW FRIENDS
Pandemic has disrupted some social circles
By Katherine Cusumano
It took a pandemic, a layoff and last year’s racial justice protests to impel Margo Gabriel, a travel and food writer, to finally fulfill a long-held aspiration: to move to Lisbon, Portugal, from Boston.
“I was like, ‘OK, I really need to think about next steps,’ ” Gabriel, 34, said recently. “I’m getting older.”
She applied for, and was accepted to, a two-year master’s program at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. She arrived in October.
Forming new relationships in Lisbon was a priority, but she worried about making the connections she needed to thrive in her new home, especially during the pandemic.
“I’m an introvert by nature,” Gabriel said, “so I’m easily overwhelmed.” An editor she frequently works with recommended she reach out to another expat. They hit it off over coffee, finding solidarity in their shared identity as Black American women in Portugal. “We’ve been hanging out ever since,” she said.
The pandemic has profoundly disrupted some social circles: Perhaps you’ve moved yourself, or maybe you’re looking up after a year of social distancing to find that your close friends are the ones who have relocated. And the guidance of public health officials to keep your distance, to mask up, to limit gatherings and to remain 6 feet apart? None of these are helpful for meeting new people and nurturing new friendships.
Nevertheless, Niobe Way, a professor of developmental psychology at New York University who has studied friendship for more than three decades, has anecdotally observed what she described as an
“explosion of friendships” last summer, particularly in her own Manhattan neighborhood — a display of optimism in the face of our oxymoronic collective isolation. It just takes a little more intention and a little more openness.
Here’s what experts and new pals have to say about making, and keeping, pandemic friends.
Get creative about meeting prospective friends.
“It’s a difficult time to connect with new people,” said Marisa G. Franco, a psychologist and friendship expert. “The first question you can ask yourself is, Is there someone you want to reconnect with?” According to one study, rekindling “dormant ties,” or those you’ve lost touch with, is often easier than making new friends, because the individuals already trust one another. Look through your phone to see who you were texting this time last year, or reach out to a high school or college club you were affiliated with.
Lean on existing networks of friends and acquaintances too. Though chance meetings in corridors or cafeterias may be infrequent these days, you can still turn casual connections, whether neighbors or work colleagues, into friends, or reach out to new people through shared acquaintances.
Or if that fails, join a virtual book club or a volunteer effort to connect with a stranger over a shared pastime. (It’s still possible!) Last year, Emily Beyda, a novelist, joined a roller-skating club with two other women in Los Angeles. It has since blossomed to around nine members who share techniques for new jumps, spins and tricks and linger after their practice has ended, just to talk.
Approaching strangers in public places might not feel so welcome these days, but “in general, people underestimate how much strangers like them,” Franco said.
Stay connected.
Writing letters, sending voice memos, scheduling phone or video dates — keeping in touch during the pandemic doesn’t have to be impersonal, even if it’s not in person. Not long after Catherine Smith, 34, moved to rural Abingdon, Virginia, from Philadelphia, she started trading favorite hiking routes and local tips with a new friend over Instagram. A quintessential social media meet-cute, with one pandemic-specific hitch: “We still haven’t gotten to meet in person,” Smith said.
Aminatou Sow, who hosts the podcast “Call
Your Girlfriend” and wrote the book “Big Friendship” with Ann Friedman, suggested that friends try to avoid communicating over the same airwaves used for work. So if you video chat all the time for your job, don’t video chat your friends.
“We are two friends who love the Postal Service,” Sow said of herself and Friedman. Letter-writing can even be a way to meet new people across distances: In the spring, writer Rachel Syme started a pen pal exchange called Penpalooza that has since connected more than 7,000 participants.
However you choose to stay in touch, keep it consis