Aysia Totsch, 33, owns a vintage-clothing store in Clarksville, Ind. A friend of hers had just had a second baby, and the two had drifted apart. Totsch didn't know how to meet other adults without kids. Then she saw a friendship application on TikTok and filmed her own. She admitted on camera that it felt a little weird. She posted it anyway.
Rachel Wolfe tells her story in the Friday Journal's A-hed. The video drew thousands of likes. Two people who answered in the comments are now among Totsch's closest friends. Since then the three have gone to a Hilary Duff concert, a street festival and a pumpkin patch. “You're not going to get what you don't ask for,” she said. Plenty of others are trying it. A Florida office manager offered homemade baked goods. A Memphis scholarship coordinator wanted company for thrifting or board games. Many posts open with a blunt admission of loneliness. Trolls show up now and then. Kind replies show up far more often, and some turn into real best friends.
Be specific, and say it out loud
Americans see friends less often, and have fewer close ones, than ten years ago. Psychologists cite fewer third spaces beyond home and work, more time on screens, and marriage and kids coming later or not at all. Jaimie Krems directs the Center for Friendship Research at UCLA. She says a public post turns on a person's friendship taxi light. It gives strangers who are too shy to go first an opening. She also thinks it's healthy that people now talk about loneliness openly. “If friendship were a drug it might be the most prescribed drug,” she said.
How you ask matters. Miriam Kirmayer, a clinical psychologist who focuses on adult friendship, says a general plea is too broad. Ask for a gym partner every Friday instead, so the right reader knows it's meant for them. Friend hunts online can stall the way online dating does. Jessica Lech, 26, the Florida office manager, drew more than 800 comments. She's made one real friend so far, and a few first hangs fizzled. Raymond Featherston, 29, an operations assistant, posted on the St. Louis subreddit with his back story and his favorite Six Flags ride. Roughly 40 people wrote him. He's since met his best friends and turned them into a group. “I ended up being this connector. It feels really good,” he said.
Our read
Our read, Retirement (M10), with a Behavioral lens. We spend most of our time on the money half of a retirement plan. This story is about the other half. For many of us, work supplies a ready-made social life for decades. Then it ends, often the same week the paycheck does. The psychologists in the story say the places adults once made friends are thinning out. Retirees can feel that most. The people here found a fix that costs nothing but nerve. Say what you want, and say it specifically. A walking partner on Tuesdays. A board-game night on Thursdays.
Here's where it touches your plan. Your retirement plan has a page for income and a page for health costs. It should have a page for people, with a small budget line for the class fee or the gas to go see friends. This week, write down three people outside family and work you'd call on a bad day. If the list is short, make one specific ask of one person, like a weekly walk or a standing lunch. If you're still working, start before your last day, not after. We'd be glad to help you plan the whole retirement, the people included.