Last week, I did yoga with my landscaper.
Before he cut the grass, Joseph mentioned he was struggling to teach himself yoga through YouTube videos. I was meandering barefoot through the flower beds, so I invited him to remove his shoes and join me for an impromptu class. It was so much fun that we discussed doing weekly garden yoga once spring returns.
I’ll have to work the classes around the neighborhood walks I’ll be having with Kim, a friend I met a few streets over. She was looking for a walking buddy, and after a long phone chat, we discovered so many commonalities, it was almost eerie. I experienced the same thing with Marissa, who cleaned my dad’s house. We talked for hours after she was finished, and now we text every day, go to farmers markets and share our life stories. I’m also an auntie to her son, who comes to my house for waffles and dance parties.
These are just a few of the people I met through the Nextdoor app.
When I moved to a new city, I used the app to get help with my house, but I’ll admit I was lonely after leaving behind a large network in a city I lived in for 13 years. Starting over was hard, but the last place I expected to find a community was on an app built around hired services like lawn care and home repairs and reuniting lost pets with their owners.
Did the founders of Nextdoor ever predict lawn yoga or carb-loaded dance parties would come from something they created?
I wouldn’t expect Sarah Leary, cofounder, chief marketing officer and chief global business operations officer at Nextdoor, to confirm or deny whether these things were included in her vision, but I wasn’t surprised to learn that her vision did include the belief that “when neighbors connect, communities thrive.”
She says she noticed that “While social platforms connected friends and colleagues, no one was connecting neighbors—until Nextdoor. We built a platform where neighbors help neighbors.”
Help comes in many forms, and for me—and the folks you’ll read about below—it came in the way of unexpected friendships.
Tami from Indianapolis met Rose through Nextdoor when Rose’s grandson was looking for someone to take her to the local food bank. “Before you know it, we were going every week,” she shares. “Six to seven months later… Rose, along with her husband, have become very close friends. They help me with my car, and I take them grocery shopping or wherever they need. Rose listens to me gripe, and I’m there for her on her bad days… We now consider each other family.”
When Sarah realized she was living next to people she had never met in her Dallas suburb, she put out a dinner invitation, asking, “If you’ve never stepped outside of your house to meet your neighbors, would you consider coming this night? I would love to meet you.” She never expected to see 91 neighbors in her backyard. The power of that experience triggered a new tradition that has seen her welcome more than 3,500 neighbors to her backyard table. “There’s nothing new, but something is extraordinary when we reach out to each other as neighbors,” she shares.
We need people at our table. We need friends who feel like family. We need to feel less alone in this journey, and we’ve got proof that it’s more vital now than ever.
Social connection can impact mental health
We’ve got an epidemic of loneliness.
The U.S. Surgeon General published a report in 2023 titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation” that discusses that a lack of social connection increases the risk of death by more than 60%. That’s as much as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day!
Since we spend so much of our lives on our phones, we may falsely believe we’re experiencing social connection, but social media is its own petri dish of isolation, which is why it’s vital that we use it as a stepping stone to get out the door and into each other’s lives.
Bumble BFF—a separate app from Bumble’s dating app that’s designed specifically for friendships—has been a lifesaver for people like me searching for real-life connections.
I matched separately with Jenna and Rachel, not realizing they were partners. And they had no idea they were both talking to me! I love how kindhearted they are and how natural our connection is. While chatting with them, I was also chatting with Janis, whose depth was endearing. Little did I know Janis was friends with Jenna and Rachel! While we all hang out separately, we also have a beautiful group of like-minded rock star women who support, encourage and complement each other in meaningful ways.
Emily from Kansas still remembers Nicole, the first friend she made in Seattle when she moved there several years ago. “I was still transient at the time, living between my car and the houses I was dog-sitting at,” she recalls. “I didn’t have a traditional job that was introducing me to people, nor any known community spots to start making friends. It gave me someone to talk to, to relate to, to share soup with, to sit on a couch [with] and watch a TV show and laugh together.” Nicole’s suggestion to get involved in local nannying also “ended up launching a whole new career… that not only sustained me but got me out of poverty.”
Anna and Elmira, both from Seattle, walked around the lake with Elmira’s dog, Chelsea, on their first meeting. “We’ve been walking together since,” Anna shares. “We are very different from one another in many ways, but still were able to build a friendship.” Elmira shares, “This year, after Chelsea passed away, Anna became my greatest source of emotional support, and our friendship deepened through shared experiences with her family, road trips and her brother’s wedding.”
Sara from St. Louis met three people in person with whom she’s excited to keep hanging out, and Peggy, her first BFF friend, introduced her to two other people, further expanding her circle. “I went from not really having much fun to do on the weekends… to having to keep my Outlook calendar updated so that I can keep up with what I’m doing [on] which days,” she says.
Lucille McCart, corporate communications director at Bumble, shares that “Building a strong community is key to a happy, healthy life. The people who surround you are the ones who support you through life’s ups and downs.” However, she adds, “Starting fresh with new friendships, especially as an adult, can feel overwhelming.”
It can, and it is, but with these apps in my corner, starting fresh feels hopeful, too. I look at Joseph in my backyard, arms stretched to the sky and feet anchored to the ground, and he looks as rooted as the flowers around him. And I think that’s the whole point. Friendship roots us to each other, growing into an expansive garden where everything flourishes.
Photo courtesy of sdx15/Shutterstock
