How to Meet People After Moving When You Don’t Know Anyone Yet

How to meet people when you have moved to a new city is one of the most common challenges adults face after relocating. Whether you moved for work, relationships, or a fresh start, building a social circle from scratch feels awkward and overwhelming. This guide shows you exactly how to meet people in a new city using strategies that worked for someone who’s done it three times.

Quick Answer: Meeting people in a new city requires intentional strategy. Focus on activities with built-in repetition (weekly classes, clubs, volunteering), commit to 40-60 hours of interaction time for casual friendships, and actively follow up outside your initial meeting context. The awkwardness is normal, and building real connections takes months, not weeks.

Introduction

You’re standing in your new apartment, boxes half-unpacked, and the reality hits: you don’t know a single person in this city. Your phone stays quiet. Your weekend plans involve grocery shopping and Netflix. Everyone around you seems to already have their friend groups locked down.

If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Over 40 million Americans move each year, and most of them face the same uncomfortable truth: making friends as an adult is weird, hard, and takes way longer than you’d expect.

The good news? There’s a method to this. You don’t need to be naturally outgoing or charismatic. You need a plan, some patience, and the willingness to feel awkward for a while.

How to Meet People in a New City?

Here’s what works: repeated exposure in shared-interest settings, intentional follow-up, and time. Lots of time.

Think about how you made friends before. In school, you saw the same people every day. At work, you shared coffee breaks and complained about meetings together. Friendship formed through proximity and repetition, not because you were trying.

In a new city, you need to recreate those conditions on purpose. The formula breaks down into three parts:

1. Frequency: Show up to the same place weekly (not once)
2. Follow-through: Move conversations beyond “see you next week”
3. Time: Accept that casual friendships require 40-60 hours of time together, while close friendships need 57-164 hours

Why This Feels So Weird (And Why That’s Normal)

Adult friendship formation isn’t instinctive because we’re working against biology. As personal connection decline becomes a public health concern, psychologists note that time constraints and life complexity make spontaneous bonding rare.

When you move to a new city, you lose your entire social infrastructure overnight. No wonder it feels vulnerable. One person who relocated to a new city noted it took 1,095 days to build a solid social circle. Not weeks. Three years.

Knowing this upfront helps. You’re not failing if month two feels lonely. You’re right on schedule.

The Three Settings That Work Best

Not all social situations create equal friendship potential. These three settings give you the best odds:

1. Regular Activities With Built-In Repetition
Gyms (especially CrossFit or climbing gyms where people chat between sets), fitness classes, volunteer organizations, or religious communities. The key is weekly commitment, not one-off events.

2. Interest-Based Groups
Sports leagues (even beginner ones), book clubs, board game nights, hiking groups, language exchanges, or maker spaces. Shared interest gives you something to talk about when small talk runs dry.

3. Digital Starting Points
Bumble BFF, Meetup, neighborhood apps like Nextdoor, city-specific Facebook groups, or Reddit communities. Online platforms lower the initial barrier, then you transition to in-person hangouts.

Your Related Questions, Answered

Is it normal to have a hard time making friends as an adult?

Completely normal. Here’s why:

• No forced proximity: School and college created automatic friend groups. Now you need to manufacture those conditions.
• Everyone’s busy: People have jobs, partners, kids, and existing friend groups. Their social calendar is already full.
• Higher standards: You’re pickier now about who you spend time with, which is healthy but makes the search longer.
• Time requirements: Research shows forming meaningful friendships demands substantial investment, far more than most people anticipate.

Psychotherapist Sarah Lee notes that time constraints make adult friendship formation challenging, particularly when balancing work and personal responsibilities. The difficulty isn’t a personal failing. It’s a structural reality.

How can introverts make friends?

Introverts have different needs, not fewer needs. These strategies work better than forcing yourself to love big parties:

• Choose small group settings: Coffee with two people beats a networking event with fifty.
• Quality over quantity: Aim for 2-3 close friends instead of a huge social circle.
• Use structured activities: Classes or clubs give you something to focus on besides constant conversation. The activity creates natural breaks and shared experience.
• Leverage online platforms first: Starting with text-based interaction lets you get comfortable before meeting in person.
• Honor your energy limits: One social event per week is fine. Overcommitting leads to burnout and withdrawal.

Introverts often build deeper friendships because they invest more intentionally. Use that as an advantage, not an obstacle.

How to make lasting friendships from casual acquaintances?

This is where most people stall out. You exchange pleasantries at yoga class for months but never progress beyond “hey, good to see you.” Here’s how to change that:

The numbers matter: Research by Jeffrey Hall found that moving from acquaintance to casual friend requires 40-60 hours together, while developing a real friendship demands 57-164 hours of shared time. You’re not going to speed-run this.

Move beyond the context where you met: Invite them to coffee after class. Suggest grabbing lunch. Propose checking out that new restaurant you both mentioned. The friendship solidifies when you interact outside your initial setting.

Reciprocal effort matters: If you’re always initiating and they never follow up, that’s information. Healthy friendships require mutual investment. Don’t keep pushing if someone consistently isn’t interested.

Be direct: “Hey, I’m new to the area and looking to meet people. Want to grab coffee sometime?” sounds desperate in your head but reads as refreshingly honest to others.

What I Learned Moving Three Times

I’ve relocated to three different cities in the past decade. Here’s what worked:

Join one thing immediately: Within your first two weeks, commit to one weekly activity. Mine was a climbing gym. You need somewhere to show up consistently before loneliness sets in deep.

Be annoyingly proactive about follow-up: When someone mentions they like hiking, text them a trail recommendation that night. When conversation flows easily, suggest meeting up before you leave. Wait too long and momentum dies.

Host things: Game nights, potlucks, movie screenings at your place. People are more likely to say yes to a specific invitation than a vague “we should hang out sometime.”

Rejection isn’t personal: Half the people you reach out to will flake, ghost, or politely decline. That’s the baseline. Keep going.

Give it six months minimum: I felt genuinely settled in each city around the eight-month mark. Not “I have tons of friends,” but “I have people I text and plans most weekends.” That timeline is normal.

Your Action Plan for Week One

Don’t try to do everything. Pick three actions from this list and commit to them this week:

• Research three clubs, classes, or groups related to your interests and sign up for one
• Download Bumble BFF or Meetup and message five people
• Say yes to any social invitation, even if it sounds mediocre
• Strike up conversation with someone at the gym, coffee shop, or dog park
• Join your neighborhood’s Facebook group or subreddit
• Attend a free event (open mic, art walk, community festival) alone
• Invite a coworker to lunch

Then repeat. Next week, do three more things. The month after, keep showing up to whatever you started.

Meeting people in a new city isn’t about being brave once. It’s about being consistently, awkwardly willing to put yourself out there until repetition becomes routine and acquaintances become friends.

You’ll get there. Just give yourself more time than you think you need.

Final Thoughts

Building a social life from scratch feels unnatural because it is. Most of us made our closest friends through proximity we didn’t choose: classmates, roommates, coworkers who became more than colleagues. When you move to a new city, you’re creating that proximity intentionally, and the effort shows.

But here’s what matters: six months from now, you’ll look back at this moment and barely recognize the loneliness you feel today. You’ll have inside jokes with people you haven’t met yet. You’ll have plans next weekend and the weekend after that. You’ll text someone about something funny that happened and get an immediate response.

The transition period is rough. The outcome is worth it. Keep showing up, keep reaching out, and trust that repetition turns strangers into friends. You’re doing better than you think.