Making Friends In A New City

April 11th, 2025

When I first arrived in Boston for school, I was captivated by the number of nonprofit organizations addressing issues I care about. I was fascinated by the city's cycling culture and the number of people who bike as an alternative to car dependence. Within weeks, I began cycling for fun, which led to cycling becoming my primary mode of transportation, which brought me great joy. I would ride along the Charles River, enjoying the sight of rowers on the water and families walking in the warm sun. 

This new interest in cycling captivated me, leading me to engage more with the cycling community. Boston is home to numerous nonprofits dedicated to cycling safety, run by individuals who devote their free time to causes they are passionate about. I transitioned from biking solo to participating in group rides, organizing group rides, and volunteering at community events, all supporting an issue that matters to me, bike safety.

Many people struggle to find and form friendships upon moving to a new city. Perhaps the combination of having so many people so close together causes people to maintain a distance from others and fosters an inability to put trust in new connections or even initiate a connection in the first place. While cities offer countless opportunities to connect with others, the most effective way to make friends, from my experience, is by joining a nonprofit organization focused on an issue you're passionate about. Although your motivation for joining the nonprofit is to pursue your passions, you can’t help but run into people who share the same passions, so it’s an environment that nurtures forming friendships. 

For many people who think about the struggles of forming friendships, they look back in wonder at the ease they had of making friends as kids, where every day they were in school with other kids, which fostered an ‘easy to make friends’ environment since students saw each other every day. Nonprofit work is exactly that: people with a common interest coming together on a regular basis, another ‘easy to make friends’ environment. 

This positive environment is particularly true in my experience with cycling safety work in Boston. The members of these nonprofit groups are busy individuals: they are undergraduate and graduate students, professors, and working professionals that share a common interest. When people take time out of their demanding schedules to support a cause they and you both care deeply about, those are the kind of individuals you want to surround yourself with, especially in an urban environment.