Where Did Everyone Go.

I had a best friend named Josh. We grew up in the same small town. Josh lived close enough that getting to his house only required hopping on a bike and riding for about twenty minutes through the streets.

We spent whole summers together. We would ride bikes until sunset and then go to his basement and play his PlayStation 2 so late that our mothers would be horrified if they only knew. We never had an agenda or plan, we just showed up at each others homes and stayed until we had to leave.

I was two years older than Josh. When I finished high school I left for college and life moved forward the way life does. We stayed in touch the way we told ourselves we would. And then one day I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen him.

Here is the thing about the end of a childhood friendship that nobody warns you about. There is almost never a last day that feels like a last day. There’s no fight or falling out. No moment where you look at each other and know that this is it. There is just a day you spend together that feels like every other day you have spent together. And then life moves on and that day becomes the last one without either of you ever knowing it.

One of those days riding bikes and playing video games in Josh’s basement was the last day Josh and I ever spent together. I have no idea which one. And maybe I never will.

The Structures We Lost

When I think about every meaningful friendship I have ever had it always comes back to the same thing. Some structure that just put me in the same room as the same people over and over again. School. Sports. A job. A dorm. I was not some great friend maker. The situation just kept putting us together until we were friends.

That is actually how friendship works. Researchers have found that all you really need is proximity, repeated contact and a setting where people feel comfortable enough to let their guard down. [1] That is it. Give people those three things and friendships happen almost on their own. Take them away and it does not matter how outgoing you are. You are going to struggle.

Think about it. School put you in a room with the same kids every single day for years. Sports meant you were grinding through something hard together. Clubs and activities meant you already had something in common before you even knew each other. College basically just crammed a bunch of people your age into a tiny space.

You did not build those friendships alone. The situation helped build them for you.

And then the situation went away and nobody told you what to do next.

Scattered

High school ended and your friend group left. Some went to college in state. Some went out of state. Some went straight into the workforce. The texting with them stayed active for a while, and then slowly but surely a month goes by, then a year and the text chain slowly dies. Then a few years passed and you realized you could not remember the last time you had actually seen most of those people in the same room.

College ended and it happened again. Four years of proximity and shared experience and then graduation day arrived and everyone went in different directions. Back home, new cities, to graduate programs in different states and jobs that took them somewhere I’ve never heard of. The friendships that felt permanent turned out to be held together almost entirely by the fact that you were all in the same place at the same time. Remove the place and the time and those friendships slowly faded.

My wife and I moved to Nashville almost five years ago. We left Chicago where we had grown up. We arrived in Nashville knowing nobody. And we discovered quickly that building a social life from scratch as adult’s in a new city is much more difficult than building one as a kid. The structures were gone. The forced interactions were gone. And without them the question of how you actually meet people and turn them into friends felt genuinely unanswerable.

The Routine

You know how this goes.

You finish work or you finish a long day with your kids and you are just done. The couch is right there. You flip on something to watch, phone in hand. You tell yourself you just need to decompress for a little while.

Three hours later you go to bed. You didn’t go anywhere. You did not see anyone. And somehow you feel worse than when you sat down.

I have been there more times than I can count. And it took me a while to figure out what was actually happening.

Sometimes the couch is exactly what you needed, but more times than not, it probably isn’t. I know that sounds backwards especially when you are tired. But I have noticed that when I actually drag myself out to spend time with people I come home feeling way more energized than I do after a night on the couch. Every time. There is something about actually being with people that fills you back up in a way that Netflix just never will. And there is something about the couch that feels like rest but actually just drains you.

How Modern Life Made It Worse

This is not a new problem. Making friends has always gotten harder as you get older. But the last fifteen years have made it so much worse and I think we all kind of know why.

You technically don’t have to leave the house anymore. Streaming replaced the movie theater. Grocery delivery replaced the grocery run. Food delivery replaced going out to eat. Remote work replaced the last place a lot of us were still being forced to be around other people every day.

None of those things are bad on their own. I’ve experienced them all. But all of them together have basically removed every accidental reason you used to have to be around other humans.

And then social media came in and told you that was fine because you could just stay connected online… not true. Scrolling through someone’s photos is not the same as actually being with them. Liking a post is not checking in on someone. It looks like connection from the outside but it does not feel like it. And yet somewhere in the back of our head’s we know the difference even if you cannot quite name it.

We ended up more connected and lonelier than ever. That is not a coincidence. That is what happens when you replace the real thing with something that just looks like it.

The LANY Concert

My wife and I recently went to see LANY (the best band ever). It was one of those nights that reminded me why leaving the house matters.

The concert was at a venue where it was standing room only at the front of the stage. We decided to stand for the whole concert. The room was crowded, people everywhere. People were using disposable cameras and old digital cameras from the 2000’s. It was awesome. We were standing next to a nice looking couple and I decided to strike up a conversation with them.

We talked about LANY first, because that was our most obvious connection. We traded information; “How many times have you seen them perform in person?” “What is your favorite album?” “What is your favorite song?” The conversation naturally moved into things like, where we live, what we do for a living, how long we have been married, how many kids we have, simply getting to know each other.

My wife and I drove home that night feeling extremely energized, even after standing for 4 1/2 hours. We got to see our favorite band and we made new friends. It happened because we were in the same room for the same reason. A shared experience gave us an instant foundation that would have taken more time to build any other way.

This is not a coincidence or a lucky accident. This is how human connection has always worked at its best. Shared experiences create ways for friendship to form naturally. You do not have to be a wizard at making friends. You just have to be in the right room.

The LANY concert was a forced interaction. The best ones always are.

The Work That’s Required

So where did everyone go. Honestly, the answer is pretty simple, but not necessarily easy. The answer is this, your people are there, you just have to find them. You will not find people on your couch (unless you invited them over). You will not find them in your streaming service or your Instagram feed. The connection that fills you is out there in a bar, a club, a sporting event, an art class, an anime conference. Doing something with other people who are also doing the things you love.

It may feel awkward at times. To talk to the couple standing next to you at a concert could cause an awkward interaction in which they no longer stand by you the rest of the show. Or instead, you end up meeting some great new friends. It requires a level of risk by putting yourself out there.

But the alternative is something we all know too well. Another evening on the couch. Another scroll through a feed full of people living their lives while you watch from a distance. Another night that was supposed to be restful and left you feeling emptier than when it started.

The people are out there. The shared experiences are out there. The forced interactions that turn into the friendships you have been missing are out there waiting for you to show up and let them happen.

You just have to be willing to go.

We built Disconnectd because we believe finding your people should not be this hard. Not because the people are not there. They are. Every city is full of them. But because nobody has made it easy enough to find the right room at the right time with the right people already in it.

That is what we are building. A way to find your LANY concert.

It is time to get Disconnectd. See you out there at disconnectd.com.

Sources

[1] Festinger, Leon, Stanley Schachter, and Kurt Back. Social Pressures in Informal Groups: A Study of Human Factors in Housing. Stanford University Press, 1950.