Making Long-Term Connections In A Short-Term City
Allie Wicks, Nina Kronengold, and Khalid Siraj
“Making friends as a post-grad: the great unsolved mystery.”
Emmet Chen-Ran moved to San Francisco in 2021 after graduating from Yale university. Now 25 years old, he is a Project Manager at Salesforce.
In San Francisco, 18 percent of residents are planning to move in the next year,
more than almost any other major metropolitan area in the country, according to the
2021 American Housing Survey.
“San Francisco, at least in my experience, is a very transient city. There are people coming and going all the time” said Kevin Hou.
Kevin Hou, a 22-year-old who moved to the city in 2022. Hou, a recent resident of the Mid-Market neighborhood in San Francisco, notes how the transitory social culture of San Francisco makes it more difficult for young adults who are new to the city to form meaningful relationships. “Generally people here are willing to make friends, but you always run into that situation where someone is leaving soon.”
Christopher Yin, who moved to San Francisco to work in tech, describes a sense of urgency around making new friends. This, combined with a work-centered social culture can give socializing a “transactional feel,” Yin said, “like, ‘what can you do for me?’ or ‘I only want to meet people who fit this goal of mine.’”
“I think my initial experience [moving to San Francisco] was one of friend-making-mania. I felt like to be truly settled in, I had to have a solid group of friends,” said Hou.
The urgent desire for people in their 20s to make friends quickly is
what allows social clubs, newsletters and apps to thrive.
From Top to Bottom:
Ground Floor Yoga Event, January 12, 2023, courtesy of Dakota Seidenspinner
Ground Floor Store Event, January 12, 2023, courtesy of Dakota Seidenspinner
Ground Floor Event, December 21, 2022, courtesy of Dakota Seidenspinner
Ground Floor Club is a social club in San Francisco that “fosters connections for people to meet others that share the same interests” through social events, weekly club meetings and a physical coworking space.
“One of our biggest demographics is between around 28 to 38,” said Dakota Seidenspinner, the marketing manager of Ground Floor Club. “It’s a lot of people that are post-grad. They're moving out of the city that they graduated in, they're moving away from their college friends, and they want to experience a new city, but they don't know how or where to meet people.”
“We had originally wanted to cap membership at 250,” Seidenspinner said. The demand for membership was so high the Ground Floor Club ultimately decided to cap their membership at 500.
After an initial meeting, it can be difficult for new residents to find things to do with their potential friends. Yin described “stalking Google Maps” in order to find things to do. “I would zoom in on the area where I live,” said Yin, “marking or pinning places near me that seem vaguely interesting.”
From Top to Bottom:
Broke Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco, 2004, courtesy of Stuart Schuffman
Broke Ass Stuart’s Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco V2, 2005, courtesy of Stuart Schuffman
Love Notes and Other Disasters, 2014, courtesy of Stuart Schuffman
Slouching through Neverland, 2020, courtesy of Stuart Schuffman
Broke A*s Stuart is “The Bay Area’s Favorite
Newsletter” for finding social events, according to its site. Over 40,000 people are currently
subscribed to receive weekly information about events, concerts and social gatherings happening in
San Francisco that might otherwise be hard to find.
Top to Bottom: Eddie’s List Weekly Event Newsletter, Eddie Hernandez, 2021-2022
Eddie Hernandez created another popular social newsletter, Eddie’s List, in July of 2022. “Even people who want
to go out don’t want to check out events and log information,” he said. “It's hard to find, it’s hard to access,
it's like, ‘is this worth checking out?’ There's a lot of uncertainty. But if there's a sense that other people
might go, and if there is somebody who is actually vettings these events, it makes it easier to go.”
Yin described using social information sites and apps, in his case Meetup.com, to find activities to
do in person with other San Francisco residents. He and a friend attend a corgi owner meetup every
Friday in a city park where they can pet the dogs and talk to other owners. “The social app thing works,”
he said.
Bumble BFF and Nudge are two other apps commonly used to meet people in new areas. Some use them to
meet others online and maintain entirely digital friendships, while others use them to facilitate
initial connections online before meeting in person.
“I tried the apps for a little bit; there's some efficacy there,” said Joey Santoro, who graduated
from college in 2019 before moving to San Francisco the same year. “Although I don't think I want it.
I want to be the kind of person who can meet somebody in public through a shared hobby or through a
friend rather than through an app,” said Santoro, 24.
Ren-Chan likes friend making apps because,”you get a ton of options, it is a really wide net that
you get to cast.” However, he said that he dislikes them because they result in less successful
friendships than organic interaction.
“So it's more efficient, I guess, in that you're running through more people faster, but also not more efficient because the odds of making real friends are lower,” said Ren-Chan.
While social facilitators such as apps, newsletters and social clubs help people initially find
events and meet others, Hernandez also believes real success depends on the user’s mindset. They
have to change their perspective, “rather than just rely on a tool, because the tool is just
basically the first step,” Hernandez said. “It is not going to fix anything if you don't kind of
have all the reinforcing efforts and prioritization that is needed to get the most out of those.”
Both when using social facilitators and when meeting people offline, Chen-Ran and Hou describe the
importance of patience and dedication in allowing a natural friendship to form.
In early 2022, Chen-Ran stumbled into the City Art Gallery
in the Mission District. Intrigued by the artwork, he began to speak to the person at the front desk — who
turned out to be the artist. Immediately, they hit it off, and made plans to paint outdoors together the
following week. After their first artistic pursuit, they dedicated themselves to painting outdoors every week.
Artwork created by Ran-Chen in 2022.
“I think repetition is a huge part of making friends,” Hou said. “ It's kind of emulating that same environment
that classes had, where it was set time, set schedule, set place, and then you're all just kind of congregated in
this place experiencing a very similar thing. Repetition could include the gym, an art class, or anything like that.”
Chen-Ran said that it was not until the third time painting together that they realized they were friends. After
that, they started hanging out in other contexts. She recently attended his 25th birthday party.
“It took nearly a year to find ‘my people’,” said Chen-Ran.
“Something I wish I realized when I first moved here is that making real friends is a slow process,” Hou said. “It's
okay to have moved to a new city and not have any friends for a little bit. Be patient and enjoy the moment."
