How to Make Friends in a New City

Hello friends and welcome back to Life Reimagined, a free weekly elixir designed to make you feel good and live better.

This week, we’re going to talk about how to build a community when you move to a new city and a simple framework for fighting depression and a lack of direction in life.

🙋‍♂️ I. Dear Cal: Building a Community

I’m always looking for ways to evolve this newsletter and that’s why I’m excited to introduce the first edition of Dear Cal, a Q&A series in which I answer questions from readers about common problems in life and business. If you like this new segment or have a question of your own, please hit reply!

Here’s this week’s question:

My friend’s dad always says, “The best way to win a marathon is to start running as fast as you can, and then slowly increase your speed.”

I’m more of a slow and steady guy when it comes to running, but I think this advice is spot on when it comes to building community in a new place.

If you want to build a community in Austin or wherever you move, you need to make that your top priority and keep working at it until you’ve got the group of friends and lifestyle that meets your community needs.

It’s important to go hard from the start because your first few months in a place often sets the tone for the remainder of your time there.

If you slowly settle in and only hang with your wife for 2 months, for example, you’ll get used to living this way. And as inertia takes over, it will be harder to make a change.

But if instead, you spend most of your free time hanging out with existing friends, going to social events, and being friendly in day-to-day life, you’ll get into a good rhythm.

That rhythm will help you nurture existing friendships and form new ones, but most importantly, it will get you in the habit of living in a way that is conducive to building a community. Plus, you’ll benefit from the fact that people are more receptive to bringing you into the fold when you’re new to a city.

Basically: Don’t be a hermit.

Never say no twice

Okay, so now that you’re committed to putting your social pants on, I’ve got five more learnings coming your way.

The next is simple, but not easy: never say no twice.

Decide you’re going to say yes to basically everything in your first three months in Austin. When a friend or stranger invites you to do something, your answer is default yes.

There are three reasons this works:

1. Doing lots of stuff early on will get you in a good flow, helping you understand who you like and what you enjoy doing in the new city.

2. When you say yes to hanging out, people will start to think about you as someone who is down to do things. And when they inevitably do other things, they’re more likely to think of you as someone to invite.

3. Most importantly, people don’t like being rejected. So if you say no to their invites early on, they’ll stop thinking of you as an option. Most people are fine with a single “no”, but once you give two or three in a row, you often get bucketed as someone who is too hard to hang out with.

So just say yes to pretty much everything at the start. If someone wants to grab a coffee on a Monday, do it. If someone wants to go paddle boarding, do it. If someone wants you to come to their dinner party and board game night, do it — even if you’re like me and don’t enjoy board games.

After a few months of building good momentum with enough people, you can start to be more selective about what you do. And regardless of what you do, don’t be flakey, non-responsive, or late to events. That’s just lame.

Building bridges with existing friends

Your friends may love you dearly, but they’re not used to having you around when you’re new to their city. You can solve this problem by being proactive.

First, tell your friends that you’re moving to Austin, ideally a few months in advance so you can build up some hype for your glorious arrival.

Second, figure out the best ways to fit into your friends’ lives. If your friends have been in Austin for a while, they have their own routines and activities and other friends! You need to find a way to fit into their life puzzle, which may be different than it was when you first became friends (I wrote more about that here).

Third, let your friends know that you want to expand your community. Your friends likely know other people who you may enjoy hanging out with. If they offer to connect you with someone they know who has similar hobbies or interests, take them up on the offer. If they don’t offer one, ask for an introduction! Meet that person as soon as you can, and don’t forget to thank your friend once you do.

Don’t make new friends as a couple

It’s hard to make friends as an adult. It takes at least three or four good hangouts with a new person to start a friendship that may stick. You have to get to know someone, share different experiences together, and slowly build goodwill and trust.

This process of forming friendships becomes at least five times harder when you add your partner into the mix. So it’s best to reduce that extra friction and make independent friendships in the beginning. There are many reasons for this, but just trust that it’s true.

That said, life is much better when you and your partner enjoy hanging out with each other’s friends. So once you have a semi-solid foundation for a new friendship, that’s your queue to bring your partner back into the mix.

Sometimes it makes the dynamic better. Other times it doesn’t. Either way, bringing your partner in later on reduces the risk of the new friendship fizzling out.

Pay to be in the action

During your first year in a city, pay more to be in a central area that has a lot of people, cafes, bars, and other places where you may end up doing activities with others.

This advice is all about reducing friction. By “being in the action,” you make hanging out easier for you and for other people.

Your experience in a city is wildly different if you can walk to a cafe where people hang out versus having to drive for 30 minutes to get there. No matter how much “current you” thinks “future you” will have the stamina to make it work, we all know that friction gets in the way.

And while you may be able to get a nicer apartment or more quiet time if you live further from the action, save these desires for when you already have a thriving community and can move further away without stunting your social life.

Remember, how you start is how you finish. So living in the center of things makes it easier to start well and finish well.

Remember that many adults are lonely

Some people have thriving communities and no interest in making new friends, but large swaths of adults are craving more connection in their lives.

That means that you’re not alone in your desire to build a better community. Knowing this won’t get you to the friend finish line, but it can nudge you to be more friendly, open-minded, and adventurous enough to ask new people to do things with you when you feel that initial spark of common interests.

And if you’re up for it, you can often make a lot of friends by hosting events (simple dinner parties, meetups about a topic you like, and so on). Other people will appreciate you being the person who brings others together and helps fill their desire to socialize with people without having to do anything but show up.

There is so much more to say on the topic of building a community, but these are a few of the core ideas that have come out of my failures and successes in moving to new towns. Wishing you and your wife luck on the move, and let me know if any of this ends up being helpful for you!

P.S. If you want to submit a question for me to answer, you can do so here.

P.P.S. If you have any more tactics that have worked for you when building a community in a new city, reply to this email and I can pass that advice along to the reader who asked the question!

🧘‍♂️ II. Strengthening Your Life Force

I watched "Stutz," a Netflix documentary featuring actor Jonah Hill and his long-time therapist Stuz. This film offers an intimate glimpse into the transformative power of effective therapy.

When asked about how he helps people with depression stemming from a lack of direction in life, Stutz had an interesting approach. He said that it’s a mistake to try discovering your purpose by dwelling on your life and trying to think your way to the solution.

Instead, he suggests focusing on strengthening your Life Force, which is a pyramid comprised of three fundamental layers: Body, People, and Self.

• Body is about taking care of your biological needs. At a basic level, this means getting good sleep, exercising regularly, and maintaining a healthy diet.

• People is about nurturing your relationships. Things like calling an old friend or going out to lunch with someone can have a profound impact on your sense of connection with others.

• Self is about becoming self-aware. Stutz suggests freeform journaling for some time to start understanding and clarifying your unconscious desires that may be hidden.

If you work on these three areas, starting with the body and moving on to your relationship with others and yourself, most of your life will come into place.

While I had not heard of this framework until this week, I have used a very similar approach to navigate dark periods of life. And while it seems simple and obvious, it works. It may not solve all of your problems, but if you take it seriously, it will help nudge you closer to where you want to be.

🧠 III. Something I’m Thinking About

That's all for now. Hope you liked the new segment. See you next Sunday.

— Cal

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