How I Learned to Make Friends in a New City

I’ve never been of the outgoing sort, nor do I have a captive personality which enthralls everyone I meet. Yet through most of my youth I’ve had a good group of friends I could count on and could call upon to go do something. My cross country teammates from college are to this day some of my closest friends. We have a great culture and a strong relationship that will last the rest of our lives.

But when I moved to New York after college, I found myself in a place where I no longer had access to my friends. Most of them had moved to different cities across the country, which meant I didn’t have a lot of people I knew nearby I could text message to see if they wanted to hang out. We’ve stayed in very close contact using email and other social media, but that’s not quite the same. Living in New York those first couple years was very difficult since I knew so few people and they still lived too far away or were too busy to see more than once or twice a month. I knew I needed to make new friends if I was to prevent myself from becoming incredibly depressed or a weird shut in. But how?

I tried joining a adult kickball league. That was quite fun and I met some really nice people, but once the league ended, we all just went our separate ways. We lived too far apart from each other and were far too unorganized to actually get together for something that wasn’t already set up for us.

I also went to some Meetups, but they were a bit intimidating. There were just too many people there, and I’m a bit too shy to just go up to someone and try to strike up a conversation. Nevertheless, I have met people at them and even gotten together for lunch later on. But that too was impossible to sustain.

Everything seemed to come back to the problem of distance — seeing my old friends and new one was just too much of an ordeal to do often. What I needed was to meet people who lived close by. What worked so well with my old college buddies is that I had lived with many of them in a big house. So, why not try to do that again? I came up with a plan: find a big really nice apartment with lots of bedrooms, and then find people to fill up the other bedrooms.

It was quite tough to execute my plan, but I succeeded. I found a relatively affordable, five bedroom apartment in a great location and — most importantly — a huge living room space. I had to move very quickly to scrounge up four other people from Craigslist so that I could secure the apartment, but I was able to pull it off.

I’ve become very close with my four roommates over the years, but frankly, I still don’t think it’s enough. They’re often busy, or out of town, or not interested in going out to do what I want to do. I still yearn for the type of social network I had in college that made it possible to have fun experiences all the time. And I know that my solution isn’t exactly accessible for other people going through the same situation I did.

I’m starting a company because I believe there is an easy solution that will help anyone build an amazing network that they can use to go out into the real world and do the things they want to do. Krewe takes the best elements of what makes social life on a college campus so great and packs it into a simple little app. It places people in a small social group of their peers so that they can feel comfortable meeting up and getting to know people. You don’t have to feel like you’re on a date, or introduce yourself to a stranger. You can just sit and have a casual group conversation.

Krewe only introduces you to people who live within a mile of you, so everyone is within walking distance and can conveniently get together for a few drinks, even on a busy work night. Connections take time and persistence to form, so having easy access to people is crucial. Over time, Krewe lets you expand your group so that you can meet others who live close by, and you can form a strong local community.

I believe Krewe is the secret to unlocking the relationships that are meaningful and long-lasting. I’m sharing it with the world so that no one ever has to feel alone or fear moving to an unknown place. Making friends should be at least as easy as it was in our youth.