About 26 million Americans moved in 2024. If you're one of the people who recently relocated to a new city, you already know the hardest part isn't unpacking boxes or learning a new commute. It's the social blank slate.
Your old friends are a timezone away. Your coworkers might be remote. Your weekend suddenly has no standing plans. And the loneliness can hit fast. A U.S. Surgeon General report found that roughly half of American adults experience loneliness, and relocating is one of the biggest triggers. Moving separates you from the familiar communities, routines, and casual social contacts that most people don't realize they depend on until they're gone.
The good news: building a social life in a new city is a solvable problem. And events are the most effective tool for solving it. Not dating apps. Not hoping you'll bond with your neighbors. Structured, recurring events where you see the same people repeatedly until familiarity becomes friendship.
Here's how to do it, backed by actual research.
Why Events Work Better Than Apps
There are a dozen "friend-finding" apps now: Bumble BFF, Friended, Peanut, and others. They all have the same basic idea as dating apps, but for platonic friendships. And they all have the same basic problem: meeting a stranger one-on-one with the explicit purpose of "becoming friends" is awkward. There's pressure to click immediately. There's no shared context. It feels like an interview.
Events solve this because they provide what researchers call a "shared activity context." You're not there to make friends. You're there to run, to code, to play volleyball, to learn about wine, to discuss a book. The friendship forms as a side effect of doing something together repeatedly.
Jeffrey Hall, a communication studies researcher at the University of Kansas, published a study on how long it takes to form friendships. His findings: it takes adults roughly 94 hours of shared time to go from acquaintance to casual friend, and about 164 hours to become actual friends. For close friendship, you're looking at 200+ hours.
That's a lot of hours. And the only realistic way to accumulate them is through repeated interaction in a shared context. Which is exactly what recurring events provide.
The First 30 Days: Getting Started
The first month in a new city is the most important for setting social habits. Here's a step-by-step approach.
Week 1: Find Your Recurring Events
Your goal in week one is to identify two to four recurring events you can attend regularly. Not one-off events. Recurring ones. The repetition is what matters.
Good places to search:
- Meetup is still the best platform for recurring community events. Search by interest, not just by "social" or "networking." If you like hiking, find the hiking group. If you code, find the developer meetup.
- Eventbrite lists workshops, classes, and structured events. Use the "Free" filter to avoid spending money while you're still exploring.
- Check your local subreddit (r/toronto, r/seattle, r/london, etc.) for weekly "things to do" threads. These are community-curated and often surface events the platforms miss.
- Coworking spaces like WeWork post public event calendars, and many events are open to non-members.
- Don't overlook your gym, yoga studio, or fitness center. Group fitness is an underrated community builder. The people who show up to the Tuesday 7 AM spin class every week are a ready-made social circle.
For a comprehensive breakdown of where to find events, see our complete guide to finding local events.
Week 2: Show Up and Be a Regular
Go to the events you found. Introduce yourself. Be honest: "I just moved here from [city] and I'm trying to find my people" is a perfectly good opener. Most people remember being new somewhere and will go out of their way to be welcoming.
The key insight: don't evaluate each event based on whether you made a best friend on night one. Evaluate it based on whether you'd go back. Friendship takes time. Your only job right now is to become a regular.
Week 3-4: Start Saying Yes to Everything
By week three, you'll start getting invitations. Someone at the running club mentions a weekend hike. A person from the meetup group is going to a comedy show. A coworker mentions a new restaurant.
Say yes to all of it. Every single invitation. Even the ones that don't sound amazing. This is the "friendship funnel": you need a wide top (lots of casual contacts) to produce a narrow bottom (a few close friends). You don't know which casual contact will become a close friend, so cast a wide net early.
Tired of hunting for events?
Scouty is an AI event scout who monitors the web 24/7 and texts you on WhatsApp when he finds events matching your interests. No more checking 10 different platforms. Just tell him what you're looking for.
Chat with ScoutyThe Best Event Types for Meeting People in a New City
Not all events are equally good for building friendships. Here's what works and what doesn't.
Best: Activity-Based Groups
Running clubs, climbing gyms, recreational sports leagues, cooking classes, pottery workshops, book clubs. These work because they give you something to do together besides talk. The activity reduces social pressure and creates natural conversation topics. And because they recur weekly, you get the repeated exposure that research shows is necessary for friendship.
Classpop recommends group classes specifically because they provide "an excellent foundation for building friendships based on common ground." The shared struggle of learning something new together (badly making ceramics, surviving a HIIT class) creates bonds faster than polite conversation.
Best: Volunteer Groups
Volunteering at a community garden, food bank, animal shelter, or local nonprofit puts you in regular contact with people who care about the same things you do. The shared purpose creates quick rapport. And volunteering signals something about your character that makes people more inclined to trust you.
According to TMHDC's research on community building, volunteering introduces you to people who are "passionate about similar causes," which is a stronger foundation for friendship than geographic proximity alone.
Good: Professional Meetups and Networking Events
If you're in tech, design, marketing, or another field with an active meetup scene, professional events are a natural fit. You already share a common language and common problems with the other attendees.
The caveat: professional events tend to produce professional contacts, not necessarily friends. That's still useful, but if you're looking for a social life outside of work, complement these with non-professional activities.
Good: Classes and Courses
Language classes, art workshops, improv comedy, dance lessons. Any multi-week course where the same group meets repeatedly. The structure handles the hard part (getting people in the same room at the same time) and the repeated contact does the rest.
Harder: One-Off Events and Parties
A one-off concert, food festival, or block party can be fun, but they're not great for building friendships. You meet people once and have no built-in reason to see them again. If you do meet someone interesting at a one-off event, the burden is on you to follow up and create a second interaction. Most people don't.
The Numbers Game: How Many Events and How Long?
Let's do some rough math using Jeffrey Hall's research on friendship formation.
If a weekly event runs for two hours and you attend consistently:
| Weeks Attending | Total Hours | Expected Relationship Level |
|---|---|---|
| 6 weeks | 12 hours | Familiar faces, beginning of rapport |
| 12 weeks | 24 hours | Casual acquaintances |
| 6 months | ~50 hours | Starting to feel like friends |
| 9-12 months | 80-100 hours | Genuine friendships forming |
This timeline feels slow, and it is. Adult friendship is slow. But the research is clear that there are no real shortcuts. The good news is that attending two or three recurring events per week (which is very doable) accelerates the timeline significantly. At three events per week averaging two hours each, you're hitting 100 hours of shared time with your communities in about four months.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Waiting Until You "Feel Ready"
Loneliness can be self-reinforcing. The longer you wait to put yourself out there, the harder it gets. You don't need to feel confident or social or settled. You just need to show up. Repeatedly.
Expecting Instant Connection
You're not going to walk into a meetup and find your new best friend on day one. That's not how adult friendship works. What you're doing is planting seeds. Some will grow, most won't, and you can't tell which is which for months.
Only Trying One Type of Event
If you only go to tech meetups, your social circle will only be tech people, which can start to feel one-dimensional. Mix professional events with recreational ones. Join a sports league and a professional group and a creative class. The diversity gives you a richer, more resilient social network.
Quitting After One Bad Experience
A meetup group where nobody talked to you. A class where everyone already knew each other. An event that was smaller or less interesting than advertised. These happen. They're not a sign that the approach doesn't work. They're a sign that you haven't found the right group yet. Try a different one.
City-Specific Tips
Every city has different social dynamics, but some patterns hold:
Smaller cities and college towns tend to have tighter, more welcoming communities. It's easier to become a "regular" when the pool of people is smaller.
Large cities have more options but can feel paradoxically isolating because of the scale. Focus on your neighborhood. Find events within walking distance. Your local community is your entry point, not the whole city.
Remote workers have an extra challenge because they lack the automatic social contact of an office. If you work remotely, coworking spaces are worth the investment even if you don't need the desk, just for the social exposure. Many coworking spaces host events that are open to the public.
How to Find Events When You're New Somewhere
The hardest part is often just knowing what exists. Here are the most efficient approaches:
- Search Meetup by interest, not by "social." The running group, the coding meetup, the board game night.
- Ask your coworkers (even remote ones) what they attend or recommend in your city. People love sharing their favorite local spots.
- Your local subreddit has weekly event threads and community recommendations that surface the stuff algorithms miss.
- On Instagram, search for your city name + "events" and follow the accounts that curate local happenings.
- Walk around your neighborhood. Coffee shop bulletin boards, community center flyers, and gym class schedules are low-tech but surprisingly effective.
- Scouty can do the searching for you. Tell him what you're interested in and where you are. He monitors sources across the web and sends event recommendations to your WhatsApp. He's particularly useful when you're new somewhere and don't yet know which platforms, groups, or communities are active in your city.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to build a social life in a new city?
Research from the University of Kansas found it takes adults about 94 hours of shared time to form a casual friendship and 200+ hours for a close one. If you attend two to three events per week, expect to start feeling socially settled after about three to six months. It's faster if you're proactive about following up and saying yes to invitations.
What if I'm introverted and events drain me?
Check out our guide on networking at events as an introvert. The short version: pick smaller, activity-based events (which are less socially demanding), set time limits, and build in recharge time. You don't need to attend five events a week. Two recurring ones is enough if you're consistent.
Is it weird to go to events alone?
No. It's actually better for meeting people. When you go with a friend, you tend to stick together and form a closed pair. Going alone forces you to interact with new people, and other solo attendees will gravitate toward you. Most people at community events expect and welcome newcomers.
What if my city doesn't have many events?
Start small. A monthly coffee meetup for four people counts. Post it on Meetup or in a local Facebook group. If even four people show up, you've got the beginning of a community. Some of the best recurring events started as one person saying "I wish this existed" and then making it happen.
Just moved somewhere new? Message Scouty on WhatsApp and tell him what you're into. He'll find events in your new city so you can start building your community from week one.